Revealing mistake: When the guests open up the freezer containing the dead hotel clerk, it falls towards the camera, i.e. the viewer. Right before it changes to the reaction shot of all the guests, the corpse blinks. (00:52:50)
Identity (2003)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: James Mangold
Starring: John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Alfred Molina, Amanda Peet, John Hawkes
John Cusack is fictional, as are the others. Malcolm Rivers (The "host") suffers from multiple personality disorders and the characters in the motel were actually personalities. All of them have distinguishing characteristics which lead to the fact that they are just Malcolm's creations (eg. Same birth date, surnames are all also names of towns). In the end, the only person to leave the motel alive is Paris (Amanda Peet) as Ed (Cusack) and Rhodes (Liotta) shot each other to death. On their way to a mental institution, Malcolm has another vision, he sees Paris doing some gardening when Timmy (the little boy) appears with a door key with the number 'one' on it. We then realise he is the murderer as he was behind everyone's death in some way. Not only does Timmy kill Paris, but the personality takes control of Malcolm, who then strangles the doctor who is sitting in the seat in front of him. The car stops in the middle of nowhere.
Mele
More mistakes in IdentityMore quotes from Identity
Trivia: The movie Ginny was talking about (10 people going to an island and being killed one by one) is "And Then There Were None/Ten Little Indians" (title depends on region). This seems to be the basis of the story (10 people/victims going to a motel and are killed one by one.)
Question: Could someone please tell me who was actually murdered? I understand that all the characters at the motel were personalities in the mind of Malcolm Rivers, and that the killer was Timmy, who was also one of Rivers' personalities. So if all the people at the motel were not real, why is Rivers about to be executed for murder, and how did the authorities have photos of the murdered people if there were no actual people murdered?
Answer: Since Timmy is the killer here, it would be correct to assume that he blew up the car and took Ginny away during the commotion and killed her in some way that isn't shown in film. Or else blowing up of the car becomes completely pointless and a classic like this won't show a scene that doesn't have a significance. So blowing up the car was actually a part of the plot to kill Ginny.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: The actual, "real-life" killings happened before the events shown in the movie and are shown briefly in a flashback. The authorities knew that Malcolm had done it while believing to be one of his alternate personalities, but did not know which one, and had to be convinced that the killer personality was dead before changing his sentence to life imprisonment. Meanwhile, the killings we see in the motel during the movie, are Malcolm killing off his other personas, leaving in fact only - the killer.
Twotall