*** Official "IDENTITY" Discussion Thread

No need for spoiler tags here...it's the spoiler friendly discussion thread.

I kind of got it when Busey tried to escape but just ended up back in the hotel. I tied that to the opening and the TV previews/Trailers I saw and thought "They're all the same people." At that point I thought that they semi-existed in the real world...but figured that they were all just the killer's personalities when they brought him to the hearing. I turned to the friend that I was with and said "they're all inside his head." Also luckily, he didn't understand what I meant.

I had a strong suspicion that the people were all in the guys head before I even went to the theater, thanks to a spoiler on the Rotten Tomatoes website:

"One of my personalities liked this movie, the other nine hated it." from themoviechicks.com.

This is the actual blurb that is shown directly on the rotten tomatoes website.

So, the bodies disappearing was realistic? Sorry, but realism died WAY before the last minute of the movie

That wasn't unrealistic, as the killings were taking place in the killer's mind where anything can happen. As the personalities were eliminated, they disappeared from his mind. Perfectly plausible in my opinion. Same goes for the ending.

I unfortunately got it from the trailer, especially Cusack under the white lights shaking his head. I had written a story that covered very similar ground, although they dealt with it much better in Identity than what I could come up with.

If I didn't have it, I'm sure Busey doubling back on himself to the motel would have done it. They make a pretty good case that the outer story (with the hearing) was about the person who kills all the main characters at the motel. When they finally show his face and its clear that it isn't an actor we've seen, the alarm bells would normally be ringing.

Justin,

I know full well the premise of the movie, I was replying to someone elses post that realism was lost in the last minute when it ended up being the boy that was the killer personality.

Yep. As if the known universe was just that area around that particular hotel. Kinda like that ST:TNG episode where Dr. Crusher is in a warp bubble....

I just saw a TV spot for it and I'm glad that I didn't see this particular one before seeing the movie. Seeing Timothy walk away from the explosion with that look on his face would've ruined it for me. I feel bad for anyone that had that image in their mind when they went to see the movie.
I thought it was pretty good. Just after seeing it the jury was still out on wheter it was good or sucked, but after thinking about it I thought it was a well-made thriller with a good premise. I think that it could have been played-out better but they did a good job. The use of foreshadowing and re herrings was excellent. And the cast was top-notch.

Saw it last night and it is a genuinely creepy atmospheric movie. Great acting and a very interesting plot.

I had no idea that the kid was behind the murders. I knew right away the Ray Loitta's character wasn't on the up and up but the rest did surprise.

To be fair, that's a given with any character Ray Liotta plays.

saw the movie last night, not a bad movie i guess. i like the casting choices. ive always liked john cusack, and holmes osborne was a nice surprise, although jake busey was a little too predictable in his character, i already saw frighteners, thanks. not the best movie ive seen all year, but if they make a nice dvd package i may buy it

CJ

As I mentioned in the review thread in spoilers, I didn't get it till they mentioned all having the same birthday. I hadn't really paid a lot of attention to the trailers for the film.

When Busey doubled-back it was obvious that he either got terribly lost or something supernatural was going on, but then I was willing to believe in other types of supernatural behavior.

They got me with the red herring for the criminal being brought to trial, so that when that was revealed I was thrown enough to think in a different direction and assume we were seeing the events from that night being shown to examine if he was really crazy or not. ie, when they broke the time frame connection I just assumed that the activities were taking place in very different time frames.

So I suspected that the killer was supernatural and the angle was that while they were trying to free him he was really some supernatural killer. More like Exorcist 3 type stuff.


But as someone who nailed 6th Sense 5 minutes into the film, I can certainly understand how other people got it very quickly. If you are just thinking in the right frame of mind these things can seem very obvious. And once you pick up on it you notice ever little detail in the plot and direction driving the attempts to mislead the audience which only makes it more obvious to you.


BTW, it also strongly helped that I was so familiar with "10 Little Indians", the film was able to misdirect me badly with that so that the more unreal the murders got the more I thought "its all fake", which also made sense but took me in the wrong direction again.

So I tried to guess which killer faked his death or if they were all faked in some revenge attempt.

Just watched the movie. Really liked it, all the actors did a splendid job and I felt never cheated by the direction the movie took. I really like it when a movie is able to surprise me in a believable way which is true to the rest of the film, and this one did.

About the criticism concerning the lack of screen time for the killer. I always cared for the different personalities, even after the "twist". They all were the killer in his different incarnations, it is impossible to get to know him more outside of his head. If his main character was indeed the boy, I doubt his scenes would be very interesting to watch .

All characters existed inside of the killer and every death meant that this part of him ceased existing. That was enough for me to still care.

As with Seth, I also was thrown by the identity of the killer, thinking it was Busey who was on trial, until they wheeled him in, leaving me thinking "What is going on here". It might have been more effective if they hid the real-world killer for longer, but on the whole it was well done.

As for the film, I liked it, but thought it was trying too hard to be clever, rather than smart. Best film of the year? No. Good film, and I didn't feel like I had wasted my money.

I could tell pretty early they were all Malcolm's personalities. Malcolm's multiple personalities and background are established pretty early. The general lack of realism in the motel storyline (if the roads were flooded, how did people keep arriving?) combined with Larry's hatred of hookers made it pretty clear what was going on to me.

I'm sad to say I didn't get the final twist. Even though, in retrospect, it was fairly obvious. Especially since they referenced 10 Little Indians, where the killer fakes his own death so as to be discounted.

Hey guys!

I saw this film a while ago and I am still puzzled by something. All the "characters" get killed except for the little kid and Amanda Peet's...she gets offed at the end. Correct?

So, what the heck happened to the one guy who was running the motel? I don't recall seeing him get killed! Where did he go??? (And what was his name?)

I loved this movie.It was a great mix of various twists.The stars did a great job.It is simply a classic.

Larry was killed right before the big confrontation. He knocked Rhodes out and went for his gun, but Rhodes came to and shot him several times in the chest before he could grab it.

I couldn't agree more with everything you said!

I thought the film was OK, but I didn't care for the ending. Plus, Rebecca De Mornay demands more screen time!

I really enjoyed this.

I didn't have a problem with the "twist" at all. In fact, I thought it was quite good. And looking back on it, there were plenty of clues to tell us what was happening, including THE TITLE OF THE MOVIE itself!

I liked some of the "misdirection", making it difficult to know just where the movie was going to go. I did get a little worried when it looked like the movie was going to turn into a "ghost" tale!

It redeemed itself quite nicely.

.

Not so fast.

I expected more from Ray Liotta and John C. McGinley. Liotta's overacting made it painfully obvious very early on that he wasn't who he claimed to be; had he brought more subtlety to the role, he might have been much more effective. McGinley is a very talented guy (check him out in "Scrubs", he's terrific), but his take on his character felt phoney to me. Maybe this was the point, but it didn't work.

A fun flick, but nothing special.

Spoiler Heavy******

This is exactly the kind of psuedo-clever-phoned-in-written-over-the-weekend script that reeks of Donald Kaufman. From the first 10 minutes on, where I swore the movie couldn't have been this bad: Unless it was on purpose? It certainly couldn't have been more hokey. Indian burial grounds? The number 6 that turns into a 9 when a door is slammed? A dark and stormy night? Multiple personality disorder? 10 Little Indians? Jake Busey?

The acting was all over the map, the actors weren't so much given direction, as they were given cell phones to dial in their performances from their vacations in the Bahamas that their big fat paychecks paid for. If this lets Pruitt Taylor Vince, Liotta, Cusack, McGinley, and all the other visiting actors (notice the dad from Donnie Darko and Election as the judge) do more interesting independent movies, then I guess I support it.

And that resolution which is the oldest cop-out known to screenwriters (I wrote the same basic story when I was 16, and mine was more clever, not that it was any good either), is so dumb, I was howling at the screen. That kind of ploy allows him to get away with every cliche he wants, he could just say it was in the guy's head, of course it's hackneyed. Any continuity problems (Cusack breaks the limo's window and yet it doesn't rain into the car, next time we see the window, there's no shards or anything, it's perfectly broken) are immediately excused, because, well, it's in the guy's head. Any problems with the script you have? Well, it's in your head. It's not really there. You, watching the movie at home. You didn't like it? It's because you have multiple personality disorder and you haven't learned to suck on Hollywood's uninventive teet.

This movie has to be a comedy. I'm not going to listen to the commentary, because Mangold, who made the terrific Heavy, and has done shit since then, will probably pretend it was all intended as a horror thriller, and I refuse to believe that with this many intelligent people involved, no one said, "Hey wait a minute, this isn't serious is it?" And he will no doubt brag about all the hidden clues (Liotta was given away with the bloody shirt which I noticed early on, Pruitt Taylor Vince was given away as the serial killer because I recognized his voice on the tape, that's just my familiarity with him though), the excessive use of the rack focus, and all manners of subtlety, right Jimmy?

Why does the movie pretend we care about resolution in the guy's head, after it's revealed he's crazy and has 10 personalities? What difference does it make that the child inside him killed all those people? What kind of idiot doctor pulls the protective device back? Why would they allow it to be pulled back so easily? Wouldn't it be locked? Why am I asking these logical questions?

I look forward to Donald getting his hands on another script, perhaps The 3, II?



Identity would have been a much more enjoyable movie had it been made for USA, shown only at 2am, and starred Patrick Muldoon (as John Cusack), Kellie Martin (in the phony-pregnant newlywed role), Jim Metzler (as John C. Mcginley), Kirk Cameron (as the newlywed husband), Leo Rossi (in the Liotta role), Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (in the hooker Amanda Peet role), Brian Austin Green (as the guy who runs the hotel), Melissa Joan Hart (as the movie star), Jake Busey (as Jake Busey), and Casper Van Dien as the serial killer.

It's all about scale. If Ishtar had been an independent movie, made for $1 million, it would have been a classic. Same thing with Mystery Men and The Last Action Hero.

I just read Ebert's review, and, once again, find myself in agreement with several of his statements, including these:



and

If you think back to the beginning of the movie, it said Malcolm's mom was a prostitute. So that could be why little Timothy has such hatred for Amanda Peet (who is so hot)

Even in the context of a serial killer's mind, how in the world can a 8 year old kid ram a baseball bat BACKWARDS down a convicted killer's throat? I was let down that it was less than a paranormal killer after seeing that scene (which was cool before I knew who the killer was).

just caught this for the first time last night. entertaining movie. a few things:

i have a habit of averting trailers after the first few seconds if i know it's a movie i'm going to want to see, so i missed the shots of the kid walking away from the exploding car, which is good. but the trailer starts off with Cusack recalling the night, so right away you know he survives. still, there is suspense in that you don't know how far the killer gets before Cusack escapes or kills the killer.

i may have missed stuff, so 2 questions:

1. doesn't the fact that the cusack personality is present at the hearing mean that that particular personality isn't dead (and that none of the others may be dead either)?
2. where did the movie implicate the convict as being the kid's biological father?




i was relieved.

I hated this movie - which is rare. Few movies I see and despise. The worst movie I've seen in a theater in a long, long time, and for me, the worst movie of 2003.

Once the supposedly clever twist takes place, then there is no reason to retain empathy with a single person in the film. Ooh, lookie. A representation of an imaginary personality construct is in danger.

I'm happy for those who you could be entertained by this, but I haven't had such a strong desire to walk out of a movie since Nightbreed in the late 80's.