I just watched the movie Unknown starring Liam Neeson and Diane Kruger. From the trailers, I expected this movie to be extremely suspenseful and full of plot twists. The movie started slowly and had very little action until the middle of the movie. Since the premise of this movie was to figure out who Martin is, played by Neeson, I watched the characters closely. The first question I had, ‘why would Martin leave his wife played by January Jones, without taking two minutes to run inside the hotel to let her know that he left his briefcase at the airport and needed take a taxi to go back to get it?’ Her response as she watched him jump into a cab and leave while she stood at the hotel desk unable to the get room they had booked was also curious. She had very little reaction to seeing her husband suddenly leave her.
On the way to the airport, the taxi swerves to avoid hitting a refrigerator that falls off of the back of a truck causing the cab to go over a bridge and into river. The driver, played by Diane Kruger, saves Martin, then flees the scene of the accident when the medics arrive. This suggests that there is something suspicious going on. When Martin awakes in the hospital and no one has been looking for him for the last four days, the plot thickens. At this point, the storyline becomes a little bit interesting.
Martin remembers bits and pieces of his past, but seems to regain his memory quickly. He remembers he is in Berlin for the conference being held that evening which is mentioned on the news and leaves the hospital to find his wife. When he arrives at the conference, his wife claims she has no idea who he is. Again, Jones reaction to the allegation is much to be desired. At this point, I have hope that the script writer has some wild twist that will be presented. If not, then the wife and her claimed to be husband played by Aidan Quinn are obviously in on the scam. It is also clear that Jones is not being forced to be a part of this scam as we see by her reaction to Quinn when they are at the restaurant. Jones lovingly reaches for Quinn’s hand which is seen by Martin through the restaurant window.
Martin returns to the hospital confused. At this point, he could have called a relative to verify his identity or another friend since the one he called didn’t answer the phone or even went to airport security and explained the situation. They had photos of him entering the country. Instead, he continues to question who he is.
The attending nurse just happens to know of someone who can help him find his real identity and gives him the name and address of her friend. What luck! Martin is given an MRI. When he is suddenly pulled out of the MRI machine, he witnesses that same nurse being killed. Martin is who he believes he is and something sinister is taking place. At this point, it became apparent to me that there wasn’t going to be any great plot twists, much to my disappointment.
The next high point of this predictable movie is when Martin meets up with Gina, the taxi driver and invites himself to stay at her place. When the bad guys break in while Martin is in the shower, he conveniently has time to get dressed and get out the window on to the roof to hide. Predictably, he comes back into the apartment just in time to save Gina from being murdered and in turn kills the first bad guy. A car chase ensues with the second bad guy. Although this is an action packed scene, I thought either the writer gave Martin great driving skills for a botanist or this guy is a trained spy. As we soon find out, he turns out to be a trained assassin, close enough guess in my book.
From this point on, the movie went downhill with no more suspense or twists to be had. It became very predictable. Martin is led astray by his believed to be wife, he is captured by the bad guys, Gina must save him and the two must work together to foil the evil assassination plot. They of course succeed and become a predictable couple at the end of the movie.