SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Identity tells the story of ten people who, through coincidence, all end up at a motel in Nevada together during a torrential rain storm.  The roads in each direction are flooded and they are forced to stay the night.  There is a car accident and a woman is hurt badly, which puts some urgency on the characters in the beginning since they cannot seem to communicate with anyone.  The people start dying one at a time and no one sees who is responsible.  It seems pretty standard fair until the bodies start disappearing as if they were never there.  That is where the movie starts to change course drastically. 

I really enjoyed this movie, however, I would have enjoyed it more if the commercials had not spoiled it for me.  If you are still reading this, I am going to assume that you have already seen the movie.  In the commercials for the movie, they show the shot of the little boy walking away from the exploding car with that evil look on his face.  That is a HUGE SPOILER, and because of it I had it in my head that the little boy was the villain somehow.  Also, they give away that all the people have the same birthday in the commercials, which lead me to believe earlier than I should, that none of the people really existed. 

If you didn't understand the movie, I'll put my thoughts on the events of it here.  The ten people at the motel never existed in reality, and neither did the motel.  The person the lawyers and doctors are having the emergency meeting about executing (I think his name is Malcolm Rivers) is going to be executed for multiple murders at an apartment complex.  So he is not reliving the events of the people he killed.  The pictures of the murdered people they show are not any of the ten people at the motel.  All the events at the motel and all the characters at the motel, are in Malcolm's head.  The ten people are constructs of his consciousness and the motel is a common place where they are forced to confront each other.  The doctor (Alfred Molina) has put together this situation somehow to find out who the personality is that was doing the killing and destroy it.  The ten people being murdered at the motel are just split personalities, and they are being murdered by the little boy.  It's a very original story. 

I think the story is very effective and puts all the clues there for you to see them.  It doesn't cheat as movies with "surprise endings" sometimes do.  Even the hand logo from the poster makes more sense because the fingers are all different people but attached to one hand.  I did feel that the reveal might have been too early, because once it was revealed that none of those people were real, I stopped caring about their fates.  It kind of destroys your attachment to them.  I still wanted to see how the story ended, but I didn't really care about the remaining characters at that point. 

The comparisons to Ten Little Indians are pretty obvious.  They even go so far as to mention it at one point, and, like in the book, the killer fakes his own death only to return at the end to kill the remaining survivor.  Ray Liotta has the audience's point of view in most of the movie, because he isn't buying into any of the strange events.  He always places blame on the most obvious person.  I like his speech after about 3 people have died,

<waving his gun> "OK, you want a plan?  Here's a plan.  We're all going to stay right here in this room and not move.  If there's something out there and it comes in here, I'm going to shoot it. If he <pointing to the most recent supposed killer tied to a chair> tries something, I'm going to shoot him.  And if anyone else tries to leave this room, I'm going to shoot them."

It is the thing we all say we would do in that situation.  I like it when filmmakers realize that and put a character there to fill that spot.

So, I think Identity is a new spin on a familiar formula and tells its story honestly.  Let me know what you think.  Send me an email or start a fight in the forums or something.