Identity was the crisis - did you see? no comments

On a mere whim I decided to watch Identity last Tuesday night - with a cast including John Cusack, Ray Liotta and Alfred Molina how could I resist? A cast to die for . . .

I did have misgivings about it being on Channel 5, but through the Freeview box we now get both a picture and sound. (Last time I watched C5 - Blind Fury, with Rutger Hauer - was on a B&W portable with the aerial perched on top of a door. Despite all that I thoroughly enjoyed it.)

It starts with a cryptic introduction to a past killing spree before fragmenting into a series of flashbacks of seemingly random encounters and accidents. These rapidly come together to leave the cast of ten trapped in a motel, where they can be killed in warmth and comfort from the storm . . .

The reviews had it sounding like a modern remake of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Niggers/Indians/Soldiers (delete as feels comfortable), which it has strong elements of, but it has a very different feel beause Christie had everyone invited to a remote spot.

Identity has a series of clever encounters which defied a connection between the antagonists:

A woman loses a shoe out of her car

Someone gets a flat tyre from running over the shoe
Someone has an accident with the car stopped to change a tyre.

At first it doesn't seem like the cast are ever going to meet at all, but fate(?) brings them together.

Periodically events shift away from the motel to an anomalous legal hearing. Thanks to the other flashbacks I was left adrift as to whether these were supposed to be in the past, still happening, or even following the main sequence of events.

Despite the parallels with Christie being strongly evident long before it was mentioned, it develops into something else, with even a teasing hint of supernatural thrown into the mix, before coming to a sensible conclusion.

And then a gratuitous extra bit, rather like this paragraph.