Right out of the gate, I want to commend Sony on their marketing of this picture. The trailer is riveting. Over the past couple of months, I've been extremely excited to see this movie. In recent weeks, I've heard negative buzz and had a fear that maybe this would be one of those movies with a great build up and a disaster of an ending. Thankfully, this wasn't at all the case, although some might disagree with me.

Taking an obvious cue from Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, Identity is a beautifully structured whodunit, that finds a group of strangers brought together at a hotel in the middle of nowhere, during an intense storm. As the night progresses, these strangers start dropping like flies. The tension rises as the group of paranoid lodgers begin to point the finger at one another.

All of these characters have their own little, interesting quirks, and while they might seem a tad one-dimensional, there's much more brimming beneath the surface.

John Cusack is one of our most underrated actors and he carries Identity on his shoulders. It is through his eyes that the mystery really unfolds. The actor conveys a loneliness that is more than effective. John C. McGinley is also fantastic as a shy, neurotic soul striving to keep his injured wife alive despite limited resources. Amanda Peet does her best work here as a mysterious woman looking to start a new life. Both Rebecca DeMornay and Clea Duvall give less inspired performances. The rest of the cast do their best but are upstaged by the previously mentioned actors, and the real star of the show--Director James Mangold.

Identity is really more about structure rather than character (although character plays a much more important part in the final act of the movie), and director James Mangold has fashioned a creepy, puzzle of a movie that is effective in many ways. It works as a murder mystery but it's also effective in ways that I can't really go into without giving away an important part of the plot. Identity has been attacked for it's twist explanation of an ending, but for me, the resolution was satisfying and in keeping with the tone of the rest of the film.

At a brisk ninety minutes, there really aren't any moments in this picture that could have been discarded. In fact, I have some colleagues who feel the movie should have been longer and that it would have benefited from more character development. I think the running time is perfect, and most of Identity will have you on the edge of your seat.

Identity reminded me of everything from Psycho to The Usual Suspects to A Beautiful Mind to Frailty, and Mangold has really outdone himself. Aside from Copland, this is clearly his best work (I have yet to see Heavy).

Above all, Identity is a fun time. This isn't a gratuitous slasher movie (a genre I have a real soft spot for). It's something much more. And when all the pieces came together, I was more than satisfied. If I have any complaints about this picture, they would be a couple of lackluster performances and a key hint to the mystery given far too early in the picture. These were hardly enough to effect my overall opinion of the movie. Identity is an extremely competent thriller.