From its trailer, "Unknown" looks like it will be a fast-paced film about a man whose identity has been stolen. Instead, it's more of a "thinking"-type film, but still delivers the car chases and interesting plot that those who saw the trailer are probably looking forward to.
Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson, "The Next Three Days") is going to a convention in Berlin with his wife, Liz (January Jones, TV's "Mad Men"), but when they arrive at their hotel in Germany, he realizes he has left his briefcase at the airport. He immediately hops into a cab, driven by Gina (Diane Kruger, "Inglourious Basterds"), in an attempt to retrace his steps and return to the airport, but the cab crashes and he almost dies. Gina saves him but then takes off, as she's an illegal, and he ends up in the hospital for about four days, and in a coma for some of those. When he awakes, his first thought is of his wife, and how scared she must be being by herself in a foreign city; when he returns back to their hotel, however, and sees her at one of the conference's events, she doesn't recognize him, and even introduces him to her husband, Dr. Martin Harris (Aidan Quinn, "Flipped"). Martin knows something is up, but he's not sure what, and so he must retrace his tracks back to where it all started: the car accident.
The film had a good supporting cast that added to the performances of its main stars, such as Frank Langella ("Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps") as a university colleague of Martin's, and Bruno Ganz ("The Reader") as a detective of sorts whom Martin approaches for help, after having been referred to him. Neeson, January Jones, and Kruger all do very well in this film too, and it was nice to see Neeson in a good action role again.
Yes, see this movie. Although it was not what I was expecting it to be, it still managed to maintain my attention throughout its 109 minute runtime, and that is really all I can ask for out of a film. I was very interested in learning why someone would want to impersonate Neeson's character, as well, and at the end (and a little before then, actually) all is revealed.
"Unknown" will be in theaters on February 18th.
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Liz Parker is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan. She currently works as an Assistant Medical Editor for a pathology website. Visit her at her movie blog Yes/No Films