"Identity" is a Psycholgical Thiller about man with Dissociative Disorder. The movie starts off with the audience being introduced to Malcolm Rivers. He is charged with such a serious crime, that he is about to be executed the next day. His psychiatrist wants to prove that Rivers is not mentally able to be the person to commit the crimes, and he convinced a judge to stand before Rivers and check again to make sure he didn't really commit his crimes. Miles away in a small hotel, a bad storm has brought many strangers together. George, his wife Alice, and his stepson Timmy have pulled into a hotel after an accident injured Alice. The accident had Alice getting hit by limo driver Ed, who hit her while they were changing a tire. Ed is bringing the former famous actress Caroline to wherever she needs to be. They go to the hotel after learning that the roads are flooded, and it turns out that the phones at the hotel do not work because of an accident involving a woman named Paris hitting the telephone polls. Two more clusters of people come to the hotel. One is a cop named Rhodes who is bringing a murderer to someplace, and a newlywed couple. All of these people rent rooms in the hotel from Larry, and everything is all right. They agreed to wait until the storm lets up to get help. Everything is going fine until one of the guests die in a brutal way. Everyone is shocked and one by one the guests begin to die, as the remaining people try to figure out who is doing the killing, and who is going to be killed next, while also trying not to be killed, all leading up to a surprising and shocking conclusion.

I was really impressed by the ending, and it's one of those movies where you can't have anybody tell you what happens. It would only ruin the experience for you. This is one of those movies where the twist affects the entire movie. The entire movie of "Identity" is based on the twist, and without it, it would be a totally different movie.
I did enjoy this film, I thought it was sufficiently confusing enough that it left you in suspense yet not so confusing that you give up watching. However, there is one fatal flaw to this movie that I really would have thought they would have bothered to get right - the guy portrayed in the movie doesn't have schizophrenia as everyone has been led to believe - schizophrenia doesn't involve multiple personalities it involves hearing voices of others. What the guy in the film seems to have is Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder) where there's more than one distinct personality in the same person. You'd think that they would have bothered to actually get the disorder right that they're writing a whole movie about. There's enough confusion with mental health disorders without the mass media contributing to it.

"Maybe he didnt take his medication that day, but on the way to the prison for the criminally insane he murders everyone in the car, and shortly thereafterwards sends one of his manifest identities, a young boy, to strangle an attractive girl her Florida garden. Apparently, the screenweriter was not satisfied with imaginary characters buried in the synopses of the psychotic killer, but with a Stephen King-like enthusiasm, made it possible for the killer to created these personalities in flesh and blood. I don't think this is clininically possible, and I have poured over the DSM -I-IV, of the AMA.If there were such an entity, it would certainly be a challenge to treat." this is the biggest mistake in this review - the young boy and former escort don't come to life in "flesh and blood"...all this happens in the killer's mind - another twist to the ending. everyone thought that the child timothy died in the car explosion and that the former escort was the only survivor, but this is not the case. as we watch the woman in her orange grove in florida (in malcolm rivers mind), it seems as though everything is fine now, but timothy comes back and reveals himself as the true killer. he kills the woman and now he is the only personality inside of malcolm's head. because of that internal battle, malcolm reverts back to killer mode and murders his psychiatrist and the driver. "Since all that happened at the hotel was imaginary, I don't feel that I should have to describe that action." why not? the hotel was the battlefield in his mind. we see the personalities struggling to survive and this is one of the most heart wrenching parts to watch. the viewer doesn't want the different personalities to die (well...some of them) because we've gotten to know them...BUT we want malcolm to mentally triumph and become just one person, so we're torn. "I will say this, altough I'm sure such a nuance point was not in the mind of the director or screenwriter, he lack of plot, craziness, inconsistencies, symbol objects such as a key,the curious amount of rain in Nevada, killings, does point to the imaginary ramblings of psychotic killer." of course it was in their mind. that was the whole point - all of those little things tells you something is not quite right with the scenario. everyone's birthday is on may 10th, everyone's last name is a state name...the viewer is thrown off and believes that some preternatural powers, possibly from the indian burial ground, brought all those ppl together for some purpose. when we find out that those ppl are actually the same person, the viewer has the epiphany, "ahhh...now it all makes sense." with all that said, i highly recommend the movie. it takes you inside the mind of a schizophrenic killer in the most interesting way...while it doesn't excuse his actions, it evokes feelings of sympathy and pity from the viewer because we see that this man wasn't truly a bad man (we see this especially with the personality edward)...his schizophrenia was caused by something out of his control. while the movie wasn't hugely successful (i think, in part, because it was marketed wrong), it's meant to be a cult classic like fight club or the professional. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse