Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Aidan Quinn, Bruno Ganz, Frank Langella.
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 113 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2011
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If thrillers about lost or stolen identities appeal to you, then Unknown may be for you. The taut script and interesting cast will keep viewers awake and wondering until the end. But those wanting greater plot plausibility and character depth may be disappointed.
Liam Neeson plays Dr Martin Harris, a mild-mannered, happily married bio-technologist attending a conference in Berlin with his wife Liz (January Jones), who survives a near-catastrophic car accident to discover that his wife doesn’t recognise him, and another man (Aidan Quin) has assumed both his name and his job.
In his search for answers Martin seeks help from Gina (Diane Kruger), a young Bosnian woman working illegally in Berlin as a taxi driver, and Ernst Jürgen (Bruno Ganz), a former member of the Stasi (the East German secret police) who agrees to help Martin prove to the world that he is who he says he is.
Pursued by assassins, and the seeming victim of a well-orchestrated conspiracy, Martin races against time and impossible odds, including some spectacular scenes including car chases and a bombing, in the attempt to reclaim his life, wife and sanity.
Based on the novel by Didier van Cauwelaert, Butcher and Cornwell’s tightly written script has plenty of twists and turns, and is one of a growing genre of ‘amnesiac’ films which began with Hitchcock’s Spellbound and includes The Manchurian Candidate and more recently Memento and The Bourne Identity.
Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax, Orphan) directs with panache, but despite Liam Neeson’s charismatic presence on screen in such early films as Rob Roy, Schindler’s List, and Michael Collins, his performance in Unknown is strangely wooden. He seems, unaccountably, to be reading his lines.
The film fares better with its other stars. Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds, Copying Beethoven) rises to the occasion splendidly, bringing depth to her character and necessary credibility to her impossibly athletic feats. Similarly memorable is January Jones (TV’s Mad Men), as Martin’s cool, inscrutable wife, Elizabeth, and Irish-American actor Aidan Quin (Sarah’s Key) as the mysterious Martin B.
But top honours go to Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire, Downfall), who brings idiosyncratic dominance to all his scenes as Jurgen, the ex-Stasi agent who like Martin, no longer knows who is since the fall of The Berlin Wall. His scene with fellow veteran Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) provides needed ballast and is the highlight of the film.
Similarly memorable is Unknown’s cinematography. Flavio Labiano captures post-1989 Berlin admirably, with more than a passing nod at the beginning to Wim Wenders’ ‘angels’ (Wings of Desire) as the camera pans from the air, Berlin’s Victory column and Brandenburg Gate.
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