Identity

How sad. A promising thriller with an interesting twist that proves that a good director is worth his weight in (box office) gold. In other words, while this film did okay at the theater, with someone's grand vision at the helm it would have outgrossed...oh...Panic Room (a film with just the opposite, too much style). The setting: Psycho, i.e., a motel in the middle of nowhere, dark and dreary, with an odd manager. The roles: every personality type you can think of stuck together at the motel and getting killed off (as fast as possible). The major star: John Cusack, who should be getting plum roles, but seems to have a crappy agent. Up-and-coming starlet: Amanda Peet, who was starting to scare me every time she opened her mouth to scream, and not because her scream was particularly scary but because it was becoming obvious how malnourished she is. The final denouement: obvious, if you pay even the tiniest bit of attention. With a little bit of style and vision, we would still have known what was going to occur, but at least it would have been an eye-opening ride. Instead, this ends up only slightly more pleasing than a Michael Bay / Jerry Bruckheimer film.

year: 2003
length: 90 min.
rating: 2.5
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309698/combined