Metro Pulse/Movie Guru/Identity

Movie Guru Rating:

Meditative (3 out of 5)

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Cusack and company, in the desert and all wet

by Adrienne Martini

The first quarter of every calendar year sucks harder than a Hoover when it comes to filmed entertainment. Gone is the holiday buzz and the need to spend hours in the dark away from your houseful of family. Fall's Oscar contenders have long since withered but the summer blockbusters have not yet blossomed. March and April at the cineplex are like February rains— necessary but cold and gloomy and depressing.

This is the time of year when the sun comes back out. Sure, we're facing a summer of mindless blockbusters, but such films are big stupid fun. They perfectly match the season. Before we can get to giddy and flashy fairy tales like X2, which opens this weekend, we had to endure one more weekend of dreary, by-the-numbers fare.

Like, say, The Good Thief and Confidence—both of which have garnered decent reviews but tread ground well-trodden by all of the grifter/gambler flicks that have come before. Or Better Luck Tomorrow, which adds an Asian note to the same old high school crime chicken soup. The less said about Runs in the Family the better. Which left either The Real Cancun or Identity as the prime review candidates. Ah, spring.

Something in me balked at the idea of plunking down $5 to see an hour-and-a-half long episode of MTV's Spring Break Uncensored. Ninety-plus minutes of barfing, beaches, and boobs held little appeal—even less so than they had in college. So, Identity, which, in a nutshell, is well worth $5, if only to see yet another movie where John Cusack is soaked to the skin during all of his pivotal scenes. Think Say Anything. Think High Fidelity. Think Hot Pursuit.

As further proof that this is a barren season for movies, Identity was tops at the box office last weekend, beating out the formulaic lacklusterness of Anger Management and Malibu's Most Wanted. At any other time of the year, Identity wouldn't have even cracked the top five. I'd like to say that would be a shame—unrepentant Cusack fan that I am—but that would be overstating the case. Identity is a good movie if only because it is well aware of its limitations and knows how to play within them. If Identity was a poetry form, it would be an unraunchy limerick, content not to push the restrictions of the form.

It starts out as a garden- variety thriller. Ten strangers, through a series of coincidences, find themselves stranded in a desert hotel because the torrential rain has washed out roads and phone lines. A killer starts to pick them off, starting with the self-centered actress, played by Rebecca DeMornay, who is unrecognizable as the same woman who was in Risky Business. Jake Busey, whose natural cro-magnon mien and sluggish diction don't so much seem like an acting choice as a synergistic casting move, and Ray Liotta are the heavies. Also turning up are Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina and John C. McGinley—all of whom turn in solid if unspectacular performances. And, of course, there's Cusack, the former cop with a heart of gold who decides to puzzle out the crimes.

There are certainly a few edge-of-your seat moments, which are tautly choreographed by director James Mangold (Cop Land, Kate and Leopold). The real star may be the hotel itself, a dilapidated outpost designed by Mark Friedberg, who has repeatedly proven that he's really good at his job with production designs for visual stunners like Far From Heaven, Pollack, and The Ice Storm. This set becomes another creepy character, one that is full of malice and faded wallpaper.

The whole tightly wound plot watch flies into bits just before Identity's third act begins. Here the plot twists in a uniquely unsatisfying way—and the last 20 minutes are merely a weak-ass apology for the coitus interruptus. At any other time, this turn of events would sink a picture. This week it is the front-runner.

The cop-out of the end, however, doesn't negate the well-crafted first two-thirds. But it does make you wonder if, with a stronger dénouement, Identity could have held its own during the hot months.