Identity - film review

Identity is a film made in 2003, a psychological thriller that owes something (just like Jack Reacher!) to a plot associated with Agatha Christie. Yet, again like Jack Reacher, it stands on its own two feet - and very well, actually. I must admit that I saw it some years ago and was not overly impressed, but I think I saw it on a bad day. A second viewing made it clear that it's a very clever movie.

It opens with that excellent actor Alfred Molina as a shrink talking to a patient who is accused of being a serial killer. New evidence has come to light, and there's a last minute hearing to see if the chap can escape the death penalty. Is he mad rather than bad? Before we can begin to answer the question, the action switches to a remote motel in a ferocious downpour.

Ten people come to the motel - and one by one, they start to be killed (does this sound familiar, Christie fans?) A motel room key is found by each corpse. What on earth is going on? The group is a mixed bunch - a prostitute, a police officer, the dodgy motel keeper, a young boy and his parents, and so on. But can anyone be trusted? Are they all what they seem? Twist follows twist, in  a very satisfying way.

The excellent cast includes Ray Liotta, John Cusack and Rebecca de Mornay. I really can't think why I didn't care for this one first time round - I now think it's one of the most entertaining American thrillers of the present century. Not at all easy to guess what's going on, and all the more satisfying because of it. Recommended - and certainly not just for Christie fans.

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Guilty as Sin

Guilty as Sin is a 1993 movie directed by Sidney Lumet, whose CV includes such notable ‘legal world’ films as 12 Angry Men and The Verdict. Guilty as Sin is not in the same league, but even so, I thought it was pretty effective entertainment.

The stars are both very good-looking – Rebecca De Mornay and Don Johnson. De Mornay plays a hot-shot criminal defence lawyer, while Johnson is a manipulative womaniser accused of throwing his rich wife out of a window. De Mornay unwisely succumbs to his pleading that she represent him, and spends the rest of the film regretting it.

I’m not a trial lawyer, and in particular I’m not familiar with the American legal system, but with this movie, as with many others, there were aspects of the story that stretched my credulity. Would a judge really have forced De Mornay to continue representing Johnson when she wanted to back out – and wouldn’t her bosses have fielded some other advocate when Johnson suggested that the two of them were having an affair?

But once disbelief was suspended, I enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot, even if the finale was rather abrupt. It’s certainly never a hardship to watch a film starring Rebecca De Mornay, and although this wasn’t one of Lumet’s masterpieces, it demonstrated his ability to tell an entertaining story.