Liam Neeson thriller a tense film throughout
”
Unknown
”
is a psychological thriller that keeps the main character in the
dark until nearly the end of the film
– and it keeps viewers in the state of uncertainty along with
him.
Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) is an American botanist who is
in Berlin for a biotechnology conference. He is traveling with his
wife Elizabeth Harris (January Jones.) The two arrive at a fancy
hotel in the city center when Martin realizes he has left one of
his bags back at the airport
– the bag that has his passport and other identification. He
takes off in a taxi to retrieve it while his wife checks into the
hotel.
Liam Neeson thriller a tense film throughout
“Unknown” is a psychological thriller that keeps the main character in the dark until nearly the end of the film – and it keeps viewers in the state of uncertainty along with him.
Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) is an American botanist who is in Berlin for a biotechnology conference. He is traveling with his wife Elizabeth Harris (January Jones.) The two arrive at a fancy hotel in the city center when Martin realizes he has left one of his bags back at the airport – the bag that has his passport and other identification. He takes off in a taxi to retrieve it while his wife checks into the hotel.
But on the way to the airport, his taxi driver Gina (Diane Kruger) has to swerve to avoid hitting a motorcyclist. She loses control of the taxi and it dives into a waterway. She escapes from the car and even manages to pull the unconscious doctor to safety before she flees the scene of the accident.
Four days later, Martin awakes from a coma. No one has been looking for him and he has no identification on him. Neeson has an expressive enough face that he can portray the lost and confused feelings someone who has just woken up from a coma might experience. He doesn’t remember much of anything until he sees a mention of the biotechnology conference on television. He suddenly remembers his name, where he is staying and that his wife was with him when he arrived in Berlin.
Among his few belongings is a watch with the initials E.H. and M.H. carved on it, a gift from his wife on their honeymoon in Paris. Against the doctor’s wishes, he checks himself out of the hospital and heads to the hotel to find his wife. But without identification, the hotel staff will not let him have access to his room.
Eventually he spies his wife across the room and tries to follow her into a private party in one of the ballrooms. But when he eventually comes into contact with her, she doesn’t recognize him. Things become even more confusing when she calls over another man she says is her husband Dr. Martin Harris (played by Aidan Quinn.)
When security takes Martin away, he tries to think of other ways to verify his identity. He asks them to talk to the professor with whom he is in town to meet, Prof. Bressler (Sebastian Koch,) but then he realizes he has only talked to the man over the phone or via e-mail, not in person. When the security guards go to the website of the university from which Martin is visiting, the biography page on him shows the picture of the other man (Quinn.) He tries to call a friend from home, a mentor he says has known him for 15 years, but Rodney Cole (Frank Langella) does not answer.
Soon Martin is wandering the streets of Berlin looking for a way to prove he is connected to his past. He searches for the taxi driver so she can fill in the blanks of his memory. But Gina is reluctant to talk because she is an illegal immigrant. Martin again confronts the imposter when he is meeting with Prof. Bressler at the university, but he is flummoxed when the imposter knows vivid details from his phone conversations with Bressler. He passes out and again finds himself in the hospital.
Martin begins to doubt if he is right about who he thinks he is or if maybe his memory has been mixed up by the coma. A nurse slips him the name and address of a man she says can find people before he is taken off for an MRI. When Martin awakes from the procedure, a man he saw following him the day before kills the nurse and tries to poison him. He gets away – just barely – but now Martin is convinced that someone has stolen his identity and that they have threatened his wife’s life and that is why she is pretending not to know him.
He enlists the help of the man the nurse recommended, Jurgen (Bruno Ganz,) a former agent under the East Berlin regime. Jurgen is an expert at finding information others don’t want revealed and he says in 24 hours he will have some proof for Martin. Martin, in the meantime, finds Gina to see if she will talk with Jurgen. The rest of the movie turns into more of a typical action movie as Martin discovers there is more than one person after him. He draws Gina into his web, unknowingly, and soon the two are on the run from people for reasons they don’t understand.
Though the two car chase scenes go on for a little too long, Martin’s true identity and the reason others are after him is revealed late in the film, leaving the storyline taut for many of the scenes.
Melissa Flores can be reached at mf*****@pi**********.com. She writes a blog at http://melissa-movielines.blogspot.com, where readers can find her take on the Academy Awards, which airs Feb. 27.
