Indie film heroes gather together for Agatha Christie-style mystery
Identity is kind of like the indie Murder on the Orient Express.
While watching it, one revels in seeing his or her favorite character actors and bit players slowly stalked and killed.
Well, there’s Donnie Darko’s dad! And Frida’s husband is right over there. And let’s not forget John Cusack, the star of many a famous indie film.
It’s like one big ol’ family reunion that would warm the heart if the film weren’t so resolutely set out to make you puzzle your way through its intricacies.
While its studio is selling it as a horror flick, Identity is really a devilishly clever puzzle movie. While it doesn’t have the stylishness of Memento or The Usual Suspects, it one-ups those films by offering a devastatingly clever twist about two-thirds of the way through its run without cheating at all.
As you think back on the film’s first two-thirds, you realize that the film has been building towards its twist and leaving clues all over the place.
You won’t catch them until the twist is revealed. Identity has been that devilishly constructed by director James Mangold. It’s the kind of movie you’ll want to see again right after it’s over.
4.5 stars
The Devil in the White City:
Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City shows just how good good non-fiction can be if it really sets its mind to it.
The book blends the Chicago World’s Fair, the nation’s first real serial killer, a grieving architect, an assassin and Walt Disney, of all people, into one giant mixture of a book that is equal parts history text, horror novel and gossip column.
Larson may have created one of the finest non-fiction books in recent memory with this one. It reads like a novel and blends its many disparate pieces into a whole much greater than its parts.
In the end, The Devil in the White City is worth reading simply for its rumination on themes of creation and destruction. That the book makes us wonder about things that profound is a testament to its power. (TV)
5 stars
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