Movie Review: ‘UNKNOWN’

After last year’s surprise film Orphan, I had held out some hope for Jaume Collet-Serra.  He took that film and really ran with it.  There was enough visual and technical identity in that film to say that he may be someone to keep watching. I thought he handled his story twists pretty well in Orphan as well.  I also didn’t think his House of Wax remake – even though it was more of a Tourist Trap remake – was as bad as people made it out to be.  I would be lying if I didn’t say I was somewhat looking forward to Unknown.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a film that I was dying to see but I really gained some respect for Collet-Serra after Orphan last year.  Also, Liam Neeson has always been a favorite of mine – even if I always remember him as Peyton Westlake.

Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris who is flying into Berlin with his wife Elizabeth (January Jones) to participate in a Biotechnology conference.  Once he arrives at the hotel, he quickly realizes that he left behind his briefcase at the airport which contains his identification, passport and other important materials.  On the way back to the airport, his taxi is involved in a car accident, which brought back memories of seeing Final Destination 2.  His taxi driver, played by Diane Kruger, saves him from drowning but is in a coma for 4 days.  When he recovers in the hospital, he is not sure on why his wife hasn’t been notified or is there with him.  Once he is reluctantly released, he heads back to the hotel and finds his wife but his wife doesn’t recognize him.  Throughout the film we are taking through the tasks he goes through to try to prove he is who he says he is.  However, at every possible turn, he is disproven as it seems another man, played by Aidan Quinn, has taken over his identity.

There are some interesting things that are addressed in the film.  What makes you, you?  Collet-Serra actually does a very good job in putting the audience in Harris’ shoes.  Unfortunately, the script really doesn’t have the legs to pull this type of story off.  The film, in the middle act, becomes more of a location showoff piece of Germany.  It is obvious that the crew was trying to pull off a modern Hitchcock tale with the modern sensibility of action.  The bad thing is that it isn’t done very well in this flick.  Unknown seems to crib off of what worked in Neeson’s previous role in Taken a bit too much.  So much so that if that film wasn’t made, it really makes you question if Unknown would have existed.  By the time we get to the last, revealing half of the film, most of you will have figured out the twist.

The performances are fine and I personally thought the direction was pretty well done as well.  The biggest fault is the story as it loses the audience in the middle of the film.  Then you combine the last act and what you get is a bit of a messy film.  That’s not to say that when the action is on the screen it doesn’t deliver though.  There is a really well executed car chase scene in Unknown that the audience seemed to really dig.

Jaume Collet-Serra throws his own visual flair into the film along with a constant use of showing a particular graffiti tag which I thought would be of use to the plot, but it wasn’t.

All in all, Unknown is an average mystery thriller that is hindered by a uneventful middle portion along with the fact that it seems to really think it is smarter with its twist than it really is.