A Piss-Poor Film Review

Well, yesterday I saw the movie that everyone's been talking about. That's right, I saw Identity. (ba-da-boom!)

It is not a very good film, so I won't spend any time thinking about it. I read once that if you want to write a great movie, you limit the number of coincidences to one. This film has about fifteen in the first five minutes, and then it piles a few more on for good-measure in the last act. It feels like a successful spoof of a thriller until it gets about two thirds of the way in, then it goes a little Usual-Suspecty, and becomes, I guess, semi-half-decent?

On the plus side, it contains one of my favourite lines of dialogue in recent memory, which I plan on turning into a tee-shirt to wear on my morning jogs: "Whores don't deserve a second chance". (I'm sorry if this is more offensive than funny - if you'd seen the film you'd laugh.)

An aside to all this, which I very much wish I could communicate more fully, has to do with the projectionist. You know how when you go see a movie these days, they show that slide-show of questions and answers and various advertisements before the lights go down? Well, the screen went to black after these ads were through, and we were treated to one of the more awful compilations of commercials and previews I'd seen in recent memory-- a testament to the suckiness of Identity's demographic. The new Johnny Depp movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, made me think that not only is Depp sucking it, but in need of a lobotomy. There were about six others, none of which I can remember.

Then the movie started, and as it did, the slide show of commercials came back up on the screen. This created a series of dizzying super-impositions over the film's opening montage sequence, (about the trial of a serial-killer with several identities). With every fade to black, and flicker of lightning, an image of the latest Honda Accura on a mountain top would filter through in perfect clarity. Occasionally, only part of the screen would darken, an actor's name would appear, and with it, a product shot: Ray Liotta, coupled effectively with an image of deodorant, etc.. It prompted e to say-- "it's the future of movies!"

It was great. It lasted for about four minutes, was easily the most entertaining part of the film, and rendered the whole flick absolutely cost-free. (In fact, the usher accidentally gave us three free passes instead of two, so it turns out we made money watching this dung).

And you can't beat that!

Posted by ÿ at May 16, 2003 01:05 PM