by RUPERT BOTTENBERG, MATTHEW HAYS, JOANNE LATIMER and MATTHEW WOODLEY

Identity

A terrible, nasty sensation sunk in as the first reel of Identity began to unspool before me. No, not suspense or fear, like we're supposed to feel during a movie of this sort, but dread at the concept that I was sitting through another movie of this variety: the we're-stuck-in-an-odd-isolated-place-and-getting-knocked-off-one-by-one crossed with a whodunit. Not exactly my idea of a splendid night out at the cinemas, despite being a big suspense and horror freak. Sigh and yawn, almost simultaneously.

But guess what? Identity actually manages to save itself, rising above both the mediocre and expected. That should make sense, as it's helmed by genre-defiant James Mangold, the director behind such oddities as Heavy and Cop Land (the latter being perhaps one of the only solid late-career Stallone films). Also helping is the fine work of John Cusack and Ray Liotta (Liotta being an actor who's underrated and someone we see too little of). In a post-Usual Suspects, post-Sixth Sense world, it's easy to get tired and jaded by an overabundance of film scripts with cheesy a-ha! shocker finales. Identity managed to pull out the rug from my expectations on a couple of counts, and I would reckon that that merits a commendation. Don't let some fool tell you what happens, just go and see for yourself! (MH)

Steal

Pay your full 12 bucks for this and you'll find out exactly what the steal is. Following the foul-smelling The Transporter, flatulent frog Luc Besson's B-movie production parade continues (quantity, not quality, seems to be the game with this guy) with this latest dose of cool crooks, extreme sports, smashed-up cop cars and plot twists clearly visible from a good mile off. Of course, it's always fun to see a flick that capitalizes on our fair city, even if it's standing in for Pittsburgh and even if Stephen Dwarf - sorry, Dorff - keeps getting in the way. The whole mess is directed by Gérard Pirès, who brings the same over-the-top automotive crash-bang he did to the entertaining Taxi. Thing is, Taxi backed that with likeable characters and snappy dialogue, both sadly absent here. This could be edited down to a satisfying lite-beer ad of about two minutes and little would be lost. (RB)

Better Luck Tomorrow

We don't have SAT scores to traumatize our kids in Canada. That's a big relief, from the perspective of Ben (Parry Shen) and his over-achieving Chinese American friends. Studying for the SATs and scoring extra-curricular points on college applications drives their lives - when they're not running scams and dealing drugs. Better Luck Tomorrow isn't half as stylish nor as smart as it'd like to be. It struggles, like Ben and the boys, to be cool and it also fails when it acts tough. Slow-motion shots of the guys walking away from nice cars are a little too Reservoir Dogs to be unique. Despite Ben's sympathetic voiceover, director Justin Lin takes a juvenile glee in the smug world of disaffected youth. Ben informs us that his good grades are like a licence for bad behaviour. He tests it, to its limits, and the childish dare behind this movie feels as tedious as babysitting. (JL)

Confidence

It's a snappy and most excellent one-word title for a movie. Sadly, that's about where the positive words can end for this review. It should have been titled Irritation.

Ed Burns plays a con man, a grifter, who works with a bunch of other grifters and con men. Sadly, an entire cast of noteworthies got sucked into this mess (hey, people have gotta eat), including Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, and (most disappointingly) Dustin Hoffman. They wander through this movie, under the apparent impression that the audience might actually care who is ultimately, really, behind everything that goes on. Jesus, how many times have we seen movies of this sort? Worse still is the über-trying-to-be-clever-and-ironic dialogue, which comes in spurts, bits and pieces. None of it, sadly, made me laugh.

Also sadly, is the appearance of Hoffman. Other actors of his generation (Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino, to name but three) are managing to create some of their most interesting and challenging roles now. Not Hoffman, whose career is languishing amid the stupidly sentimental (Moonlight Mile) and things like this. Hoffman plays a sleazoid here, in a film that is so far beneath him it's a miracle he's in it. (Burns, on the other hand, all style and no substance that I can detect, belongs here.) What is up with Hoffman that he's not getting better roles than this? He chews up the scenery and looks like someone doing a bad exercise in a second-year actor's class. Dear Dustin, we hardly know you anymore. (MH)

It Runs in the Family

The cast combo alone in this move reeks of cute and charming. Three generations of Douglas - Kirk, Michael and Cameron - play three generations of Grombergs, a materially successful but communicatively challenged New York family.

In the middle is Alex (Michael), a high-stakes lawyer trying to hold the clan together. The characters surrounding him are predictable: a curmudgeonly father (Kirk), a wife (Bernadette Peters) left cold by her husband's incessantly-ringing cell phone, a pot-dealing, college-flunking son (Cameron), and a quietly wise pubescent son (Rory Culkin) who doesn't want to end up like dad.

The Gromberg family trials are brought to a pinnacle through a quick series of deaths, a drug bust and a pair of lacy underwear that Alex's wife finds in his pocket. But any dramatic effect that all of these events could have had gets washed out in predictable outcomes and bizarre pacing.

If any character shines in this movie it's family patriarch Mitchell, staring his own mortality in the face after losing his wife and brother. Several years ago, Kirk Douglas suffered a stroke followed by a bout of depression and an ensuing inspirational memoir. His partial paralysis and slurred speech give extra weight to Mitchell's character and he's the only one who develops significantly throughout the movie. As for everyone else, it's funny that a group of people who play characters so connected to themselves could have so little depth. (MW)

Identity, Steal, Better Luck Tomorrow, Confidence and It Runs in the Family open Friday, April 25

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