At one point in Identity, a young woman played by Clea Duvall comments that the situation of the movie’s ten central characters is oddly reminiscent of a movie where ten strangers are all on an island, realize they have some strange connection and then start dying one by one. She is referring, of course, to …And Then There Were None, based on the classic Agatha Christie novel. It’s doubtful that a twenty-something would be familiar with any of the book’s three film adaptations, all which were made before she was born, but that is beside the point. What is truly odd about this reference is that a character in this movie would acknowledge the very story from which it so blatantly steals many of its plot points.

The island is now a motel, the kind of motel so ancient and creaky that one suspects Norman Bates might leap out from behind any of its murky corners. A brutal storm has flooded the single road that leads away from the motel, so various marooned travelers start checking in one by one. They include a high-strung actress (Rebecca De Mornay) and her resourceful limo driver (John Cusack), a short-fused policeman (Ray Liotta) escorting a murderous prisoner (Jake Busey) and a high-priced hooker escaping Las Vegas to tend to an orange grove in Florida (Amanda Peet).

The initial premise is clichéd but promising, and during the film’s early scenes, director James Mangold does a satisfying job of building genuine tension around the first few murders. Alongside each dead body, there lies one of the motel room keys, counting down from “10.” Primary suspects in the killings start dying, at which point the group learns that the motel was built on an ancient Native American burial ground. And when one of the characters runs off toward a row of eerie blue lights in the distance, he inexplicably finds himself back at the motel from which he started. The movie is also interspersed with scenes from an intriguing subplot involving a roomful of lawyers and a mental patient, which we strongly suspect is closely linked to the primary action.

However, as key elements of the plot are revealed, Identity regrettably shifts from a perfectly functional thriller to a film desperately striving to convey some lofty message about its title theme. Suddenly, the audience is expected to believe a movie that has just demonstrated some of the more gruesome ways to execute a human being is about something of significance.

In a truly desperate final act, the rug is yanked out from under us once again. The movie’s ultimate revelation is so ludicrous, so whimsical, and so utterly in defiance of mathematical probability that it obliterates any of the psychological intrigue that hadn’t already been undermined during the movie’s second half. If Mangold had played it straight, without attempting to grapple with grand themes and a controversial finish, Identity might have been a much more successful film. As it stands, the movie faces an identity crisis as severe as any of its characters’.

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