Unknown: Movie Review

Well, I'm back with another movie review! Seriously, I think I'm going to try to put one or two of these every week. It depends on what I have to watch and if I have the time. Speaking of what I have to watch, there are at least six (6) others movies that I still have to watch with more to come later, I'm sure.

On to this blog entry movie review!

What do I have to say about Liam Neeson? Nothing. He has become quite a force in the action, spy, thriller genre as of late. And, in my opinion, Neeson plays the role very well.

So I was very pleased with his movie Unknown. Yes, in the past few movie blog posts that I have written, I tended to rip new a-holes in some poorly made or ghastly told stories. I thought, maybe, I should try something different. What's that, different?

I have seen Neeson's prior film Taken and enjoyed it very much. Mind you that I never seen the actor play any aggressive role before, unless you count some of the fights in The Phantom Menace, but that's another story, and I'm going off point.

When I first heard about this movie and its premise, I thought it was a sequel to Taken. However, the synopsis says otherwise. In Unknown, we are introduced to Martin Harris (Neeson), a bio-engineer, traveling with his wife Liz Harris (January Jones) to Germany to attend a scientific conference. The story takes off when Martin leaves his briefcase at the airport. He gets in a cab and tries to go back there to retrieve it and ends up in a car accident where he almost drowns in the river. He's rescued by the cab driver Gina (Diane Kruger), but before things get too harry she leaves and paramedics take Martin to the hospital where he awakens with temporary amnesia.

Now here is where things become tricky because when he is reunited with his wife, she doesn't recognize him! On top of that someone else has taken up his identity. Talk about throwing the first monkey wrench. Now a plot like this has been used before. Fine. But, things pick up after that quite nicely, trust me!

The first 40-50 minutes are spent with Martin trying to retrace his steps while convincing himself that he is not going crazy. In addition to that there are other "shadow" operatives trying to kill him the farther or closer he gets to establishing his identity. I say "identity" and not "the truth" because the real story is much larger and deeper then the audience is led to believe about Martin. Essentially one "identity" leads into the other "the truth."

Remember the briefcase, it really is important!

His search brings him back to Gina and she goes along with Martin in search for his identity. I will not go much deeper then this, but let's just say that once Martin regains and confirms his identity, a deeper and grander scheme is revealed that really shapes this movie into a pleasant viewing experience.

At first I thought the movie was not a sequel to Taken, but there are many elements in Unknown that resemble Neeson's previous excursion into the infiltration game. For starters, brief spoilers, the character Martin is actually a undercover operative who loses his memory thus jeopardizing the mission for the other operative team members. So, the movie has this retrieve and clean-up plot that unfolds and further warps the reality of these characters. In Taken, Neeson plays as similar character in that of a former special forces member who infiltrates and prostitution and drug underworld to rescue his daughter.

There are some very well establish scenes that add to the tension and appropriate confusion that builds and grabs our attention. I remember thinking there were some things that Neeson's character was able to do during teh film that I thought were too technical for a scientist, but in the end, it makes sense! Even the same energy and satisfaction that we felt in Taken, when he kills the kidnappers, is present in Unknown during the climax. At least there is for me! Throughout the movie there are plenty of high action moments and plot twists that keep you pleasantly surprised and waiting for the end to see how it all comes together. In some ways, I would say that this movie is very much the entire Bourne trilogy but condensed to just one movie.

I mean, wow, all this over a briefcase. Make a note: Never leave or forget your stuff because if you go back to get it, you may end up in a coma or with amnesia. Ha! 

So, I enjoyed Unknown and appreciated the intricate story and delivery. Wow, this one turned out shorter than my other reviews. I guess that's what you get when you write about things that you did enjoy. Writing positive reviews is different compared to negative ones, but it's still fun!

Until the next review!