Formulaic Plot Leaves Little 'Unknown'

It would be unfair to categorize Unknown as a bad movie, but it’s by no means great. Thrillers of this sort seem to have an identity crisis over how to develop and deliver original plot twists in a genre that has been done to death. Unknown doesn’t add much to Hitchcock’s stock genre, where a character is taken far away from home only to be confronted with and conspired against by forces beyond his understanding.  

If Unknown feels like you’ve seen it before, then it’s because you already have. Imagine if Memento was boiled down to its least interesting elements and infuse that with some spirit of a Bourne film but with less espionage and more plot convolutions. You’ll have a fair idea of Unknown if you can picture a lame amalgam of spy thriller and a memory-loss mystery.

As may be expected, the script is overblown and absurd, but the acting anchors the film enough to entertain anyone still gullible enough to not detect these plot twists. Again, it’s not a bad film, but if you’ve seen enough thrillers of this variety, then Unknown will leave you impatient or worse outright bored.  

Liam Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, an unlikely victim deserving of our empathy and Unknown works best when we share in his confusion. Total identity loss, after all, is a terrifying concept. Harris steps into the Twilight Zone when a car accident leaves him in a four-day coma while visiting a high-profile biotech conference in Berlin. After the accident, his memory is destroyed but he still remembers his wife (January Jones of Madmen). She, however, doesn’t remember him, and poor Dr Harris has to suffer the indignity of meeting his “real” self (Adrian Quinn) back at his hotel. Without a passport or friends in Berlin, it’s impossible to determine who is the real imposter. Though I’d guess from the people who show up later and try to kill Harris, that something sinister and totally implausible is afoot.

In a way I wish Unknown had stuck closer to this surreal misunderstanding and didn’t feel the burden to become an action film. But by the first half-hour, the audience runs into the limitations of that premise as the encounters between Neeson and Quinn begin to get pretty goofy. Yet, Unknown doesn’t really work on the action level either. This is not Neeson’s character from Taken, the good doctor is a little too ordinary and milquetoast to believe that he could fend out trained assassins. Apparently having a PhD. in botany also gives you amazing car-chase skills and a black belt in karate. Or, could it be that, gasp, things are not as they seem?

Unknown’s interesting casting makes me want to overlook certain shoddy plot elements, though you’ll see why that’s impossible if you make it to the last half-hour. By drawing on some serious talent from both sides of the Atlantic, Unknown distracts from its script’s weaknesses.

As Harris condition goes from confused by memory loss to pursued by assassins, he is helped along by a former Stasi detective, Ernst Jüger (Bruno Ganz of Downfall) and the beautiful Bosnian cab driver, Gina (Diane Kruger of Inglourious Basterds). Both of these capable Germans are A-listers in their own country and happen to speak fluent English. Though Ganz and the under-used Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon) are good in their side roles, it’s really the gorgeous and spunky Kruger who offers the most reliable performance opposite Neeson. In their scenes together, the pair feel trapped in a movie that’s beneath them. But at least the same can’t be said of January Jones, whose performance as Elizabeth Harris seemed more suited to something like a shampoo commercial.  

What Unknown is most sorely missing, despite its cast’s best efforts, is a real sense of urgency. Rather Unknown’s urgency is inconsistently thrown in: a spare car chase or two, a fistfight in a tiny apartment (Bourne, again!) and a daring escape out of an assassin-filled hospital. Each feels formulaic and uninteresting, like the action is trying to kill time to delay the all-important revelation.

Though the premise had promise, the plot is really just a convoluted excuse for action, so you think this element would have been better done. Unknown is an action-mystery that won’t have audience invested enough to want to solve.

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