nan | 楠木

    Identity, starring John Cusack and Ray Liotta, is a smart thriller/horror/mystery film that boosts more twists than the number of genres listed above.

    First off I am no John Cusack fan. No big deal, I just don’t have a liking for him, and I have not seen a lot of his features. Con Air was good, but it couldn’t help falling into the category of the run-of-the-mill action thriller in the end.

    But he gives a decent performance in this dark film. I say dark, because most of the story happens in a dark and stormy night, with eleven people trapped in a motel in the middle of nowhere because of flooded roads. What’s worse, they begin to get hacked, one by one. Familiar concept? No bet, but wait and see.

    There’s a another line parallel to the motel. A special law session is arranged in the middle of the night, because a convicted murderer is about to be executed in 24 hours, and his defense has come up with one last attempt at trying to prove him insane and thus escaping the lethal ejection.

    We know these two stories are connected―― how and when they join together is part of the mystery. Meanwhile the focus is on the motel. People die. The rest panic and try all sorts of things to save themselves. There are bits and pieces that the audience needs to put together, but it seems that we’re always receiving the wrong hints…

    Anyhow I’m not going to spoil the ending, like I’ve done already for some other films in my blog. See for yourself. All I can say that the plot is more than satisfactory, and though I came into the film with some hints of what it’s all about I still couldn’t help falling for it. The very last ending, though, is a bit over stereotyped but that really couldn’t be helped, I don’t see any other way round it.

    Now back to the cast. Not really a star ensemble, but John Cusack should offer some appeal. Ray Liotta is good in his role as a tense cop (or so it seems…), but don’t expect any great stuff from him. I still think Goodfellas is his signature film. (Though I have not seen a lot of his stuff really.) As to the others in the cast, not really names that rung bells (at least with me, anyway), but they are very convincing and a few of them steals the show sometimes.

    Good film all in all. Jumped out of its set of genres and really rocked. Just watch it.