Often, modern filmmakers try to use in their works the modernized classic plots of outstanding writers of past years. For the most part, nothing spectacular and original comes from this. But āIdentificationā (2003) is an exception to the rule; its creators skillfully used the motives of the immortal detective Agatha Christie. As a result, they got an unusual, fascinating and sometimes frightening thriller.
According to critics in the reviews of the film "Identification", screenwriter Michael Cooney and director James Mangold openly focused on the achievements of action-packed cinema in recent years when creating their brainchild. The picture was no less complex and atmospheric than the projects of David Fincher or Brian Singer. It plays a series of bloody incidents taking place in a secluded, almost deserted town, lost in the vast expanses of Nevada, during an ongoing rainfall.
The authors did not hide the fact that the plot of their offspring is based on the novel by Agatha Christie "10 Indigents." According to reviews of the film "Identification", published by reviewers from the audience, the thriller audience liked. This can be confirmed by the very high IMDb rating: 7.30 and substantial fees of $ 90,259,536 with an initial budget of $ 28,000,000.
Short storyline
The story underlying the plot of the film "Identification" unfolds during heavy rain that washed away roads and deprived the heroes of telephone communications.
The story begins with the fact that the wheel of a car in which a married couple and a ten-year-old boy ride pierces the pin of a womanās boot belonging to an ex-prostitute who was leaving Las Vegas (Amanda Peet). During the replacement of the wheel, a real tragedy occurs, the spouse is knocked down by a limousine of the once popular movie star (Rebecca De Mornei). Her driver (John Kyuzak) was distracted from the road. Now all the characters are forced to stay in a motel that frankly looks like a similar building in Psycho, however, this is where any similarities with Hitchcockās creation end.
Intrigue
Although the plot of the thriller is already quite curious in itself, reviews of the film "Identification" (2003) claim that the most interesting, of course, is ahead. The assembled people, who are gradually becoming suspects and victims, are joined by a policeman (Ray Lyotta), escorting a maniac, and a couple of newlyweds, just married in Las Vegas.
When in the motelās laundry room, in one of the washing machines, a movie star with a tag with a number 10 on it is found, the suspicions of others immediately fall on the arrested serial killer, who managed to escape from the room, freeing himself from handcuffs. But the version that he cracked down on an elderly actress and stabbed his young spouse, leaving number 9 on his body, disappears, since the murderer himself is found brutally murdered with a tag number 8.
At this moment, the suddenly widowed person recalls the classic story ā10 Indigentsā and tries to find out the existence of a connection between the audience. As it turned out, all survivors and untimely deceased have the same birthday - May 10, and their surnames and names contain geographical names.
Parallel line
If the authors of the thriller stopped at this, perhaps the film āIdentificationā received mostly negative reviews. Fortunately, the scriptwriter introduces a parallel line in time. At the same time as the sinister events in the motel, a consultation takes place in another place, in which the hero of Alfred Molina tries to mitigate the sentence of his patient, a serial killer, based on his theory of dissociative disorder and multi-figured personality splitting. The specialist is convinced that it is impossible to execute the arrested person, since not only the maniacās personality will die, but also others who are innocent. He poses to the audience the rhetorical question of what is to be judged: the body or consciousness. His theory is innovative in judicial practice and pathopsychology. Perhaps it also contains the whole meaning of the film āIdentificationā.
Idea revival
According to critics, announced in reviews of the film āIdentification,ā the project is a natural cocktail from āTen Little Indiansā by A. Christie, āPsychoā by A. Hitchcock, echoes of āCemetery of Petsā by S. King and its adaptation by director M. Lambert , the thriller Seven by D. Fincher and Remember C. Nolan. By the way, Brian DePalma was already trying to perfect the idea of āādisintegrating the personality into individuals in āKane's Educationā.
Therefore, it is logical to assume that Michael Cooney, specializing in writing scripts for horror films and thrillers, continued the cinematic tradition in covering the crimes of elusive maniacs suffering from mental disorders. But while Agatha Christie and other classics of the detective genre, twisting incidents one more mysterious than the other, still emphasized the triumph of reason, even criminal and sophisticated, Cooney introduced a new, unpredictable and uncontrollable factor that led to total chaos.
Final twist
The finale is able to surprise even the most sophisticated viewer, despite the fact that the notorious secret of the personality is revealed according to the already known principle, accompanied by the exposure of the illusions of perception. However, many movie experts emphasized that the picture does not carry a special artistic burden, is not oversaturated with non-trivial philosophical ideas. James Mangold and Michael Cooney very accurately follow the genre dramatic scheme, deliberately limiting themselves to narrow-genre tasks, striving for one thing - to defeat the audience with metamorphoses of intrigue. On this, according to film critics, the quintessence of the tape is exhausted.
In the gloomy surroundings
Before the start of the filming process of the picture, a motel model was built; in the process of shooting, a fan was turned on in every room to drive cold air. Water was constantly pouring on the actors, they admitted that every day it was unbearably hard to get wet under an artificially created shower. But the main actors managed to overcome all the hardships associated with the recreation of the atmosphere of the film.
The actors and roles of āIdentificationā are sure to be remembered by the audience. The characters of driver John Cusack and police officer Ray Liotta were especially vivid. The first always does the right thing, without fuss, is full of calm, and the second deserves to be accused of all mortal sins at once, but almost every replica of it can be used as a quote. Alfred Molina looks good in the image of a psychotherapist and Amanda Peet as a Las Vegas ex-prostitute. The effectiveness of their images is more important than some inconsistency and inconsistency of the plot.