Film review: ‘Unknown’ entertaining, but nothing special

James Klentzman

Contributing Writer

After seeing the trailers and movie posters, all talking about Liam Neeson “taking back his life,” one would be easily mistaken in believing that “Unknown” is just another version of the recent Neeson movie “Taken.”

This is a very different movie. “Taken,” while a very good movie, didn’t try to be anything more than 93 minutes of Neeson killing a lot of people. “Unknown” is still an entertaining movie, and credit can be given to the director Jaume Collet-Serra for branching out of his comfort zone of pointless horror movies. However, the movie can’t live up to what it tries to be, and is only an OK action movie and a bad thriller.

The basic plot of the movie is simple enough. While in Berlin with his wife, Neeson gets into a car accident that puts him in the hospital. When he gets out, he finds that another man claims to be him, his wife won’t acknowledge him and there is no way to prove his identity. The majority of the movie consists of him trying to figure out what’s going on and trying to find out if he’s really who he thinks he is.

Neeson leads a very talented cast through this movie and the acting is certainly one of the highlights. Neeson is, of course, the best actor in the movie, but members of his supporting cast give him a run for his money. Both January Jones and Diane Kruger (who play his wife and the taxi driver in the accident, respectively) are great in scenes with Neeson, but unfortunately don’t seem to express much emotion when they’re not around the main star.

Bruno Ganz, who Internet-savvy people will recognize as the actor who played Hitler in the German movie “Downfall,” steals each scene he’s in with a methodical creepiness in his voice. His one scene with Frank Langella (who unfortunately doesn’t have a role large enough for his talent) shows just how amazing these two veteran actors are.

The cinematography of the movie was also noteworthy. It takes a page out of “The Bourne Identity,” and it works … for the most part. One particular annoying feature is that whenever Neeson was confronted with the possibility he might not be who he think he is, the camera would tilt to an angle of a Neeson close-up. Every other stylized moment of the film (flashbacks, rave scenes and chases) were masterfully done and certainly helped to keep attention focused on what was going on.

But there were many faults that kept the movie from truly becoming a good action movie or good thriller. If anything, it can all be boiled down to awful dialogue. The actors dutifully work with what they’re given, but they’re not given much, and scenes that are supposed to keep the suspense going just fizzle. Worst of all, the dialogue is entirely predictable. Even if it’s their first time watching, viewers can say lines with the actors word for word.

It’s also upsetting how the movie sets itself up to be a decent thriller in the first half of the movie, and then switches gears into action scenes, completely dropping any lingering character development and meaningful dialogue. “Unknown” is obviously inspired by the Jason Bourne series and “Total Recall,” but couldn’t figure out what made these movies so great. Both the Bourne series and “Total Recall” were able to mesh action and psychological head-games together seamlessly, leading to viewers to think about what is going on instead of just mindlessly watching (and being entertained while doing so). The writers behind “Unknown” apparently didn’t realize this and the movie suffers because of it.

Additionally, any plot twists intended to surprise the audiences are easily figured out. It is as if they are broadcast in bright neon lights right above the screen the whole time. It can be attributed to the godawful dialogue and the complete shift to action movie, but it’s still pretty annoying. Hell, some people might have already figured out most of the twists just by watching the trailers.

In the end, all of those complaints don’t really matter. The most important thing for a movie to be is entertaining and “Unknown” does succeed in being that. Yes, the writers try too hard to make the movie something that it can’t be and any attempt at being a true thriller gets lost by setting up predictable plot twists. But the action scenes are still well-done, Neeson leads a great cast through the worst of it and audiences watching to be entertained aren’t going to be disappointed.

Grade: C+