An Unknown Quantity

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for the film Unknown. If you are planning on watching this (to be fair not great) Liam Neeson vehicle, then stop reading now.

There are a number of problems with Unknown, not least of which is the fact that the marketing campaign behind it seemed to be selling it as another “Taken”, which unfortunately this is nowhere near as good as.

The central story revolves around Liam Neeson playing a botanist called Martin Harris who’s involved in a car accident whilst en route to a science convention in Germany. He wakes up in hospital after being in a coma for a few days, and tries to find his wife, however when he finally locates her at the conference she doesn’t recognise him. His initial confusion is compounded further when his “wife” introduces her husband – someone else claiming to be Martin Harris.

Determined to get to the bottom of what’s going on, he tracks down his unfeasibly hot taxi driver (Diane Kruger) who becomes his side-kick, to work out what happened to him. Then he suddenly becomes the target of several assassination attempts so needs to get to the bottom of what’s happened before he’s murdered…

Whilst not unentertaining, this is much more thriller than action – with a very limited amount of action scenes. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t expected an action film of the calibre of Taken, but I did, so I didn’t.

Liam Neeson portrays Harris (version 1.0) as mumbly/incredulous, and January Jones, playing his wife, isn’t in the film enough. Frank Langella is suitably creepy as Neeson’s colleague and Diane Kruger gives Neeson solid support, although it seems to me an unusual choice to cast Germany’s (arguably) most famous actress in a film set in Germany and have her playing a non-German character.

There’s a really good car chase in it (not quite up to Ronin standards) and due to the fact that Harris is a botanist, when he ends up cornered by trained assassins, the tension is palpable, as it’s evident he can’t successfully fight his way out. All of which would make for an entertaining watch. But there was one point that absolutely ruined the film for me, but I can’t explain what it is without being spoilertastic, so you have been warned.

The big reveal is that Neeson is actually a hitman himself, and Martin Harris was his cover identity. When he was involved in the accident, he remembered his cover identity as if it were real. The evil agency he worked for, thinking he’d disappeared, then dispatched another hitman to take the role of Martin Harris instead. Again, this would have been absolutely fine, and whilst not entirely original, would have made for an entertaining twist. But then, during the final battle with the new Martin Harris, Neeson receives a blow to the head which somehow undoes the damage from the previous accident. I’m no Doctor, but surely this doesn’t actually happen outside of eighties cartoons? Wouldn’t the blow to the head not have made his fragile brain even more confused? No, apparently it restores everything back to normality.

Again, I appreciate that there has to be an element of suspension of disbelief when you’re watching a film; but surely this doesn’t apply when you’re lifting plot devices straight from He-Man.

Just saying.