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THE
DEATH PENALTY IS METED OUT TO MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES
INSTEAD OF PSYCHIATRY IN IDENTITY
 Identity,
directed by James Mangold, begins with a confusing
fastforward prologue, consisting of newspaper
clippings, including photos, about a boy who
was abandoned by parents at a motel and then
jumps to a second scene, where a psychiatrist
(played by Alfred Molina) argues that Malcolm
Rivers (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince), a man
about to be executed for murder, should be
spared because of some sort of mental illness.
Then the story begins on a stormy night, with
George York (played by John C. McGinley) driving
his wife Alice (played by Leila Kenzie) and
young son Timmy (played by Bret Loehr) down
a Nevada highway when the car develops a flat
tire. The wife stands on the road while the
husband changes the tire, and soon another
car comes along. The second car, driven by
Ed (played by John Cusack), is transporting
film star Caroline Suzanne (played by Rebecca
De Morney). While Ed momentarily looks away
from the road to talk to her, his car hits
the wife. Cellphones do not work, and the road
is washed out, so Ed takes responsibility and
drives to the nearest motel, hoping that the
injured woman will regain consciousness. The
five people check into a motel, which is managed
by Larry (played by John Hawkes), who reports
that motel phones do not work due to the storm.
A third car comes along, with a police officer,
Rhodes (played by Ray Liotta), and a legcuffed
prisoner, Robert Maine (played by Jack Busey);
the police officer insists on a room for the
night. A prostitute, Paris (played by Amanda
Peet), also decides to stay at the motel for
the night, as the thunderstorm continues to
impede normal travel. The final guests are
a newlywed couple, Ginny and Lou (played by
Clea Du Vall and William Lee Scott). One by
one, the ten motel guests die under unusual
circumstances, reminiscent of Agatha Christie's Ten
Little Indians (1946). One mystery is
the obvious whodunit question; a second mystery
is what the news clippings, the motel deaths,
and a man on death row have to do with one
another. An intelligent filmviewer will tie
up loose ends while walking out of the movie,
thanks in part to the movie title, but some
filmviewers may not make the connections. At
the same time, Identity's
subtext is opposition to the death penalty,
this time because some killers are mentally
ill, should not be executed, and can be helped
back to sanity with proper psychiatric care.
MH
AN
ILLEGAL ALIEN SACRIFICES EVERYTHING FOR HIS DAUGHTER
IN NO TURNING BACK
Based on a true story, No Turning
Back (Sin Returno) is about a Honduran father
and daughter in Southern California. On October 27, 1998, Professor
Pablo Fernandez (played by Jesús Nebot) returned from
teaching English at a university in Honduras, only to find
that Hurricane Mitch destroyed his home, taking the life of
his pregnant wife.
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Promising
to his remaining daughter Cristina (played by Chelsea Rendon)
that he would never leave her alone,
they enter the United States illegally from México in
January 1999 hoping for a better life. Without
proper documentation, his only employment is to pick tomatoes
for a farmer in California,
while Cristina excels at an elementary school where she makes
plenty of friends due to her charming personality. On September
9, 1999, he borrows his employer's truck to transport his six-year-old
daughter to a birthday party, drives down a residential street
in Oceanside, swerves to avoid hitting a dog that suddenly
emerges in the path of the truck, and instead hits a five-year-old
girl, who soon dies. Rather than stopping, Pablo speeds on
to avoid being arrested by police and then separated from his
daughter; he tells her that they are embarking on a "vacation." While
attempting to escape the law, he runs into sassy, anti-establishment
Soid (played by Lindsay Price), an Asian American journalist
who provides transportation for them in exchange for a videotaped
version of their story. (Occasional footage from a videocamera
testifies that her cinematographic skills are sorely lacking,
however.) The film also focuses on the family of the deceased
daughter--a husband (played by Paul Ganus) who is a physician
at a local hospital, a wife (played by Susan Haskell) who deeply
mourns the loss of their daughter, and their son. Clearly,
Mrs. Knight feels guilty because she did not prevent her daughter
from riding a tricycle into the street without first checking
traffic. Soon, the police assign the hit-and-run case to cynical
African American Detective Bryant (played by Vernée
Watson-Johnson) and her novice Hispanic partner Charlie (played
by Joe Estevez). Although Soid urges Pablo to escape to México
to avoid being arrested or extradited, he shows her the scar
that he received while attempting to cross the border in January;
Cristina also insists that they should never return to México,
preferring to vacation in the Bahamas. Since the Bahamas is
out of the question, Pablo decides to head for Canada, and
Soid agrees. However, dangers impede the northern escape route.
Since Pablo has no safe place to stay, he has to sleep in uncomfortable
places. Lacking money, Cristina begs on the beach, and Pablo
robs a convenience story, putting a couple of hundred dollars
in his pocket. At the suggestion of Soid, he applies for a
maintenance job on a cruise ship, and she arranges at her own
expense for him to have fake papers. While jobhunting, Pablo
parks Cristina at a church-operated day care center, where
she fractures an ankle. The following day, still in pain, Pablo
takes her to a hospital. By some coincidence, her emergency
room physician is Dr. Knight, and the police are soon hot on
his trail. After a seven-day manhunt, they handcuff Pablo,
who is no longer interested in living if he cannot keep his
promise to stay with his daughter. The inevitable tragic end
for Pablo, however, is mitigated at the end of the film by
redemption for Cristina and the Knights, though Soid's role
in harboring a fugitive is never brought to justice. Codirected
by Julia Monejo and Jesús Nebot, No Turning
Back shows what happens when a father is willing
to sacrifice everything to provide a better life for his daughter,
providing an insight into a motivation for illegal aliens to
enter the United States that is seldom exposed in the popular
media. As the tagline says, "Headlines never tell the
whole story." MH
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