Review: Unknown

Grade: B

Dr. Martin Harris and his wife, Elizabeth, are visiting Germany for an expo on bio-technology. Shortly after arriving, Richard Harris realizes he forgot something at the airport and takes a taxi back. However, while en route, the taxi is involved in an accident and ends up driving off a bridge. He wakes up out of a coma four days in a hospital with partial memory loss. He had no ID on him but he knows who he is. When he leaves the hospital to find his wife he finds a man has taken over his identity and nobody, not even his wife, believes him. With the help of the young woman who was driving the taxi, he sets out to prove who he is. He quickly discovers there is something much bigger going on when people are constantly trying to kill him.

Unknown is a somewhat slow moving but still fun and exciting thriller. The movie starts out a little slow but quickly picks up pace. It has some interesting twists in it and the climax of the movie is very exciting. The movie’s lead, Liam Neeson (Taken, The A-Team), is great as always, but unfortunately it is not quite the role I was hoping for. The trailer, of course, made it look like he was going to be kicking butt across the city to find the truth but instead for the majority of the movie it was the other way around. That’s not to say that he wasn’t still completely enjoyable in the movie, I was just hoping for a little more action from him. I would like to talk more about the movie but the twists and turns start so early that I don’t want to spoil anything. I will mention one thing that bothered me about this movie, I know it takes place in Germany, but I still find it a little ridiculous that just about every car in the movie is a Mercedes, except for one or two Volkswagens.

As mentioned before, Liam Neeson stars in Unknown as Dr. Martin Harris. I really like Neeson and it was a lot of fun watching him in this role. Diane Kruger (National Treasure, Troy) plays the role of Gina, the taxi driver during the accident. I really like Kruger and it was great watching her in this movie. I know she is from Germany, but I still couldn’t help feel that she was playing up her accent a bit much. January Jones (The Boat That Rocked, TVs Mad Men) plays the role of Elizabeth Harris, Martin’s wife. She was pretty decent in the movie but her character was interesting because she really legitimately seemed to not know Liam Neeson’s character. She played cold and deceitful very well. The movie also features Aiden Quinn and Frank Langella.

Unknown does start out slow but if your patient, I feel that the pay off is well worth it. The action is a lot of fun and the climax of the movie is an absolute blast to watch. It’s not the most exciting movie and it’s no Taken, but it is still worth checking out.