Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Movie Review: Identity



This review contains spoilers. In fact it is those things that would spoil the film for viewers that I will primarily be writing about.

I enjoyed this film. John Cusack is an incredibly likeable performer, and he performs well in this film. Which is not to say that I like everything he does, and, in fact, I tend to avoid films he's in on occasion, but I think Cusack is one of the few Hollywood A-lists of his generation who comes off as genuine. In Identity, Cusack is the nominal star. He is among eleven people to have mysteriously found their way to an Nevada Motel during a terrible rainstorm. By the time the film is over, ten of these will be dead. Then there's a subplot in this film concerning a mentally ill man on his way to execution. Where will the two plots intersect?

First off, I enjoyed the somewhat cliched use of setting for the film. Identity uses the West in this movie in a manner not unlike Lynch's in Wild at Heart or Craven's in the Hills Have Eyes movies- it is defined by vulnerability and a lack of natural authority. It is the occasion for claustophobia as well as oblivion. And it is meant as the (initially) metaphorical substitute for the "mind" or tone of the film. This gives it a somewhat dreamlike feel which is, in my mind, what gives horror films appeal. But is this filma horror film, or a mystery, or a mindf**k, or what? Well, this film has many aspects, cliches, and quotations from horror, and it has a horror ending, but it doesn't belong to any one genre in my mind, unless there's such thing as a Gotcha Popcorn genre.

So what is the Gotcha? The gotcha is that the primary action of the film is going on in the head of the condemned crazy murderer, who is portrayed by Pruitt Taylor Vince. Well, does it work? I think it's a pretty clever conceit, if patently ridiculous. As I hinted at in the last paragraph, this film is pretty good at breathing life into genre conventions and cliches in a way that's successful even as it flirts with postmodern cuteness.

It accomplishes this with some uneven (purposefully uneven?) characterization. John Cusack is a somewhat tortured former policeman turned limo driver, who's defined in opposition to Rebecca DeMornay's character, the cartoonishly bitchy fading actress, and Ray Liotta's, the inept and brutal cop transporting a prisoner. Amanda Peet, who's been unsympathetic in most of the films I've seen her in, plays a larcenous ex-prostitute who, we find, is leaving Vegas to pursue a quiet life as a orange grower in Florida. She's developed as a character by the abuse that the Motel manager gives her for being a whore and her kindness to the unhappy newlywed played by Clea DuVall. We have two characters, Cusack's and Peet's, who stand out as more real, sympathetic, and round than the other 9: the newlywed couple, the manager, the cop and prisoner, the actress, and the family with the wounded mother, neurotic father and silent son. Without anchoring protagonists that we can relate to, this film becomes like any number of Hollywood B-grade thrillers and horror films: a meaningless exercise in which everyone is expendable.

The Pruitt Taylor Vince character, that is, the big head with the Motel in it, is, however, in a perilous situation relative to our understanding of the story. Aside from the much flogged fact that the film uses multiple personality disorder as its gimmick, which is as cheezy a device as an evil twin, Pruitt Taylor Vince's character's existence nullifies the action inside his head. That is, it removes any expectation on the part of the viewer that the action inside the head has to conform to any standard of realism or logic. As such, the film suffers from the same disease that afflicted The Usual Suspects. If the story Verbal has been telling us is a lie, why should it correlate with the supposed actual events, ie. why should we believe any of it? Likewise, why should the action in Pruitt's head be framed in a way that makes any sense? Why should the killers in his head kill eachother in a way that obeys gravity, logical causation, or narrative expectation?

The problems that the Extremely Unreliable Narrator cause are a significant problem only insofar they damage the fabric of the story. And I didn't feel that was the case here. People who came to the movie didn't, for the most part, look for an accurate depiction of the consciousness of a dissociative. They wanted to have fun, and the movie is fun. Exciting, scary, goofy, and cheezy. Plus, the film uses its cheez with skill and some daring and avoids showiness and self congratulation.

I give it

***

out of 4

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

One of the criticisms frequently lobbed at liberals is that they don't care about September 11th, or must not remember. It's lobbed when people oppose US foreign policy of going into the Middle East with a big stick and batting the hornets' nest around. Those who protest this method of diplomacy are termed appeasers. People bring up Neville Chamberlain and Hitler. My question is... is this line of criticism at all justified?

My answer would be that no, it isn't. Of course that would be my answer, but please hear me out.

Of course it's a different criticism that we don't care about September 11th as opposed to we're appeasers, or would be appeasers. But these critcisms very frequently go together. There's also the "member of the Blame America First crowd." These attacks all come under the umbrella of attacks on the patriotism of the target. And by the way, who blamed America first? Was it the Chomskyites, or was it Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson?

On the morning of September 11th, I walked into the main room of my Printmaking studio at art school to find people huddled around the television set. It was a moment I felt the world change. I was terrified. I knew things would be forever different. And i really feel that they have been. There were teachers who said that in the long run, this was a good thing, that it had spurred America awake, and she would again be vital. I don't feel that this has come to pass.

What has happened is that the issue of bringing to justice those responsible for 9/11, apart from those who incinerated themselves in the incident, has been milked so horrifically and tastelessly by the Bush White House that it does not, at all, resemble the original issue. Saddam Hussein has nothing to do with September 11th. Saddam did not send the anthrax letters. Saddam is/was an evil dictator responible for ruining or ending the lives of millions, but he has nothing to do with September 11th. My personal opposition to the Iraq war had a lot to do with this fact, that, although the secular autocrat had nothing to do with that tragic day, that's how the war was sold to us. And I cannot support a war that is justified with cynical lies.

Does that make me an appeaser? No. it makes me someone who doesn't like being lied to. It makes me someone who actually does care about September 11th. I want al Qaeda stopped. I remember Osama bin Laden and I think that any policy my government has concerning terrorism should start with him, with his network, and making sure that the foundation of their support disappears.

There are better ways of going about that than humiliating and invading a totally unrelated country. Flexing our muscles in front of an Arab audience may be cathartic for the Darryl Worleys among us, but it gets us nowhere. The sooner we realize that, and the sooner we demand honesty from our President, the better of we will be.