Unknown

There is a brain within Unknown. While it's not the greatest thriller, and it only works for part of its running time, I did appreciate that this was not a standard moronic thriller that relies on coincidence and contrivance to hinder its hero's search. Here, its hero, Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) asks the right questions and keeps on going to the right people, but keeps on meeting roadblocks. Someone doesn't want him finding out the truth behind the mystery.

And it's an intriguing mystery too, for the most part. For the first 90 minutes or so, I was kind of caught up. There are a lot of good questions, Neeson makes for a good every man caught in the middle of it all, and there's even a very well-done high speed car chase half way through the film. But then, those pesky old revelations have to come during the film's final 25 minutes or so. It's a mix of stuff we've seen in other films before, which I will not reveal, save you figure it out before seeing the film. It also has to do with corn. Yes, literal corn, not just the stuff coming from the screenplay during the last half. As the revelations played out, I wanted to go back to when I didn't know anything. Kind of the same feeling I got while watching the ending revelations in director Jaume Collet-Serra's previous film, the killer child movie, Orphan. At least Unknown's final twists are nowhere near as loopy as that film's.

Before all that happens, though, we have Dr. Martin Harris arriving in Berlin with his wife, Elizabeth (January Jones), for a science conference at a luxury hotel. Just as they arrive at the hotel, Martin realizes that he left a briefcase back at the airport. He immediately hops back into a cab, and starts to make his way back, when a major traffic accident occurs (which is staged almost like something out of the Final Destination films), sending his cab plunging off the road and into the river below. He's saved by the quick thinking driver, and taken to a hospital, where he's in a coma for four days. He awakens with fractured memories (he hit his head during the crash), but seeing a news story on TV about the conference reminds him of why he's in Berlin, and that his wife is waiting for him. But when he checks himself out of the hospital, and races back to the hotel, he finds his wife has no idea who he is, and there is another man with her (Aidan Quinn) who claims to be Dr. Martin Harris.

He tells the authorities to do an Internet search on him, and sees the other man's photo on his professional profile, instead of his own. He remembers he had a meeting with a noted scientist before the conference, but when he arrives for the meeting, he finds that mysterious other man already there, having the meeting. He tries to prove who he is by recalling all the things he talked about on the phone with the scientist before they met, but the other man claiming to be him knows everything that was said, as well. Martin begins to feel that maybe he's not who he thinks he is, but that doubt is pretty much cleared away when shadowy figures start trailing him everywhere, trying to kill him. He knows that someone is trying to silence him, or at least keep him from remembering anything more about his fractured past.

He has some allies in his search for the truth, primarily the cab driver who saved his life the day of the accident. She's Gina (Diane Kruger), who gets wrapped up in the mystery when she offers Martin a place to stay, and the mysterious men start coming after her as well. There's also a former member of the German secret police (Bruno Ganz), who gets a bit of a thrill reliving his old spy days by helping Martin figure out what's going on. All of this is strong stuff, and we hope that the answers that eventually come won't disappoint. The answers in Unknown come with the arrival of Frank Langella late in the second act of the film. It's all downhill from there, as characters unwisely start spelling out everything for the audience before they do anything. Therefore, we get a lot of scenes where either the hero or the villain should be fighting or running away, but instead they just stand there talking, giving the other character ample time to act.

Even before the big reveal sends things crashing down, there are other small problems. Other than the accident sequence and the previously mentioned car chase, there's a surprising lack of tense sequences in the film. We're interested in the mystery behind it all, but the story itself unfolds a little slower than we expect, which might try the patience of some viewers. Still, most of this is overlooked by the strong production values (this is a beautifully shot film) and the likable performances of Neeson and Kruger, who have good chemistry together in their scenes. It's only during the film's last half hour or so that things topple down, and the contrivance of the screenplay overtakes everything else.

A lot of movies seem to know how to set up a good mystery, then blow the reveal. I was hoping against hope that Unknown would be different, but it sadly lives up to the trend. While I was walking out of the movie, I heard an elderly couple griping that the movie was an insult to their intelligence. I wouldn't go that far, but there is certainly a lot of wasted potential here.

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