Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson), and his wife, Elizabeth (January Jones), travel to Berlin for a science conference that he is speaking at. When they get to the hotel he discovers that he left his incredibly important brief case at the airport, so he gets in a cab to go back for it. Unfortunately, that wasn't a great idea and the cab smashes into a guardrail and lands in the water. He wakes up from a coma four days later and has no identification on him. He tells people that he is Dr. Martin Harris, which becomes a little awkward when he finds out that another man (Aiden Quinn) is married to his wife, and claiming to be him. The Dr. Martin Harris played by Liam Neeson is of course incredibly confused and enlists the help of the cab driver (Diane Kruger) to help figure out this mess. Professor Rodney Cole (Frank Langella) is probably the most helpful at explaining the confusion to Martin. There are twists and turns as far as the eye can see. Many of them defy logic, but if you want logic you really should not be seeing a Liam Neeson movie made in the last 3 years. With Taken, Liam Neeson proved that just because you are 56 it doesn't mean that you cannot reinvent yourself as a action star. After all, this is America and everyone has that option. It turned out that Liam Neeson is quite the leading man. He's in great shape and is surprising convincing in action movies and thrillers. It's a strange phenomenon, but after a while you accept it. Unfortunately, he does not get to shoot guns in Unknown. I've got to admit this was a little sad, as I learned to love Liam Neeson with a gun, after watching Taken. However, he did get to beat a couple people up and yell a little bit. Anyway I really like Liam Neeson and enjoyed him in this role. He worked well with the two main actresses, and I guess when he reinvented himself he made it so that his female leads are in their 30s. Once again this is America...One final acting note...Frank Langella is an incredibly talented actor and I really wish he was in more of this movie. He doesn't show up until close to the end, just in time to explain the fiasco to Liam Neeson (and audience members like myself who did not see the ending coming). I got really excited when his name showed up in the opening credits, as I had forgotten he was in the movie.
The movie was incredibly entertaining. The quit cuts and musical score all adding to the suspense of the film. The film wasn't particularly original, but I assume the filmmakers knew that and just didn't really care. However, it was fast paced and had some nice shots of taxis driving into rivers, buildings exploding, among other superficial things. Also, the flashbacks had a unique look to them, appearing to be a little blurry and surreal, adding a dream-like tone to those scenes. The camera work in general I thought was good as well, sometimes having the background be blurry and having Liam Neeson be more in focus, since he was the primary part of many of the scenes.
The dialogue in this film isn't the greatest...then again in recent years Mr. Neeson really doesn't attract quality scripts (The A-Team anyone?) anymore. Some lines in Unknown were cheesy and in a similar vein to the "skills" line Neeson so beautifully delivered in Taken. I can't think of any concrete examples right now, but there were indeed a couple dumb lines in Unknown. It might be fun for people to try and pick them out for themselves. However, no lines were as horrendous as those that were constantly hurled at me when I watched Burlesque.
If you like Liam Neeson you may find something to like about this movie. He is a great lead for action/thrillers. However, this movie obviously isn't some high quality affair...which is why it was released in February. However, it is fun to watch, and the ending is a bit surprising. 2 out of 4 stars...this may seem bad, but it's really not...2 star movies can still be perfectly entertaining...they are just not examples of solid filmmaking. Oh, and by the way, the above poster is a complete lie. I think it was just a cheap ploy to make people think of Taken and encourage them to see this movie. The two films are not as similar as people think...and Liam Neeson's hand never touched a gun in the entire movie.
-Joseph Sbrilli
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