First of all, please see this movie with no expectations. Don’t try to figure everything out, don’t try to guess what’s coming next. Impossible, right?
“Identity” is the story of about ten people who are stranded at a motel in a rainstorm. Yes, there’s no way out – the roads are flooded, the phones don’t work. And, one by one, they’re being killed. The motel looks a lot like the famous Bates Motel from “Psycho”. Silly, right? Well, hold on, it gets better and then it gets worse.
Ray Liotta and John Cusack head a fine cast looking to survive the bloodshed. They play a cop transporting a prisoner and a limo driver who used to be a cop. Because of this, they end up as the central figures in trying to put an end to the killings. The other key figure is a lady named Paris, played by Amanda Peet. She’s a hooker with an attitude. There is some pretty funny byplay between her and the motel clerk played by John Hawkes. The other people are forgettable. Whoops, did I give anything away here? Relax, just remember what I said upfront, don’t try to figure anything out and you’ll be okay.
This movie opens with a series of mishaps that bring most of these people together at the motel and it’ll grab your attention. People get run over by cars in this movie and it is pretty graphic. That seems to be a new Hollywood trend by the way – I guess showing people being stabbed and shot has gotten too routine, so now it’s people being run over by trains and cars. Hey, it worked here – my heart was racing.
I can’t say much more about the story because it all takes a big twist at the end – a twist that more than explains everything. Which is normally good, except in this case they explain everything with four people still left and that took the tension away. If you don’t know what I mean by that, you will.
I just wish one thing about “Identity” – that it was about three minutes shorter, because the last twist is silly and unnecessary. Not at all unrealistic, just silly and unnecessary. There- is that cryptic enough for you? Sorry, this is a mystery story with too many ways I could ruin it. I give it a “7.0” and I’ll leave before those last minutes play out if I see it again.
Friday, April 11th, 2003
Yes, the warning signs are all there – two stars as big as Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson in a movie released in April. You may not know this, but ordinarily, a good movie with stars this big would be saved for, say, Memorial Day weekend, or even, Easter weekend. I entered the theatre mighty skeptical.
My skepticism was soon rewarded and eventually gave way to sleep. I’m long past asking how these movies get made. The simple truth here is that Adam Sandler has his own production company. That’s how. The guy has made a fortune and he’s not even forty years old. It’s just that he’s using up his good name quickly.
Look at just some of the cast here – Nicholson, Marisa Tomei, Woody Harrelson, Bobby Knight, John Turtorro, Rudy Guiliani, Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter, Heather Graham. When Adam calls, stars respond. But for how much longer? This is probably his fourth or fifth straight stinker. Not that “Billy Madison” or “Happy Gilmore” belong in the Movie Hall of Fame, but they are masterpieces compared to this.
I’ll skip over the “plot” as comedies don’t have to have one. They just have to be funny. And I leave plenty of room for error – say how about one funny bit out of three or four? I think “Anger Management” gets it about one in twenty times and I’m being charitable.
Here’s an example – Adam is on the toilet making a phone call and a co-worker, a woman, bursts into the stall asking “why are you in the ladies room?” Adam answers, “because I heard it’s cleaner in here”. The lady responds, “not after I get through”. I rarely go through an entire scene like that but that should give you some idea how bad things get.
This may be a first for me – I nodded off four or five times and didn’t miss a thing. Meaning this movie is so basic and so awful I picked right up on the next pathetic scene. The movie is practically a collection of non-sequiters. My basic rule is this – if a movie or a TV show has to depend on a bunch of cameos by people like baseball players who cannot act, it has serious problems. “Anger Management” has serious problems.
What the studio people are counting on is a big first weekend before the word gets out. Hey, I’m here to get the word out early. I will say this one positive thing about the movie – we do get to see the real angry Jack Nicholson that took that golf club to a guy’s car a few years back. Yep, not much acting going on there. I give “Anger Management” a “2.0” on the scale.
Friday, April 4th, 2003
The story goes that the guy who conceived of this movie did so over thirty years ago and pitched his idea to Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock! I’m amazed anyone bothered to take this seriously enough this many years later since there is no longer a living Alfred Hitchcock and there are practically no phone booths left in the whole country.
The first thing this movie has going for it is that it gets right to one of those weak points. No, I’m not talking about old Alfred, but they point out right up front that there are still many pay phones left in New York City and the one in question is slated for demolition very soon.
The phone booth in question is the one our guy Stu uses to call his girlfriend so his wife won’t get suspicious. Our guy Stu is played by Colin Farrell, an Irish guy playing a Bronx born liar who works a public relations job. Of course, being a liar and being in public relations are synonymous, but Stu is a bad boy. He lies to his “clients”, he lies to his wife, he lies to everybody. So one day after talking to the girlfriend, he makes the mistake of picking up the pay phone when it rings and destiny is on the other end.
Destiny would be the voice of Keifer Sutherland, somebody who apparently has devoted his life to making bad boys pay for their “crimes” against humanity. It helps that Keifer is a sharp shooter and has positioned himself to gun Stu down if he doesn’t comply with this sick man’s requests.
This movie never stops moving – I defy you to see it and say you were bored. Before Stu answers that phone, the set-up is a number of scenes where he walks the streets of Manhattan babbling away his lies on the cell phone to dupe after dupe. Once he starts talking to Kiefer, things continue to hop as complication after complication sets in.
Let’s start with the angry prostitute who wants to use that pay phone. You’ll laugh, but you’ll also get tense as you work with Stu trying to figure out how he’s going to get rid of her and not get himself and/or the hooker shot dead.
Then the cops show up and all hell breaks loose. Lucky for Stu the lead cop (played by Forrest Whitaker) is a softie who has been through therapy and actually believes Stu is talking to his therapist. They covered almost all the bases here in answering and explaining every loophole in the plot. I had plenty of questions coming in to this and I’m happy to say they dealt with all of them.
The best movies draw you in and leave you hanging and “Phone Booth” does that extremely well. I laughed at some of the fun Keifer has at Stu’s expense, for example, mocking the cop’s sensitivity in saying “give this guy a seat on Oprah”. I can even forgive the unbelievably clear and smooth voice they give Kiefer. After all, this is a New York City pay phone.
“Phone Booth” is tense and unravels in a smart, crisp fashion. Thirty years was worth it after all. Oh, by the way, this was supposed to be released last fall, but that nasty D.C. area sniper story got in the way. It was all worth the wait. Even if you don’t care what happens to Stu, you can’t resist the way this unfolds. I give it an “8.0”.
