The film begins simply enough: Dr. Martin Harris (Neeson) and his wife, Elizabeth (January Jones) arrive in Berlin, where Martin is to give a presentation at a biotechnology conference. The couple take a taxi to their hotel, where Martin learns he has left a briefcase at the airport, and thus he leaves Elizabeth to check in while he hails another taxi to take him to retrieve the luggage. On the way to the airport, however, a freak accident leaves Martin in a coma, from which he awakens four days later with no immediate recollection of the accident, and he can only recall fragments of the events leading up to it. His doctor (Karl Markovics, whom you may recognize from The Counterfeiters) fills him on what happened. Martin, remembering the hotel he was going to stay at, promptly leaves the hospital to find his wife, who he is sure must be worried about being alone in a city she does not know as well as the fact that her husband has been missing for four days.
After an initial scuffle with the hotel staff due to Martin's lack of any identification, he spots his wife amid a throng of people and makes his way over to her. However, she does not seem to recognize him at all. Even stranger is when she calls out to "Martin," and a man quickly comes to her side. He is her husband, Dr. Martin Harris (Aidan Quinn). Baffled, Martin is escorted away from the crowd, now faced with the challenge of somehow proving that he is the real Dr. Martin Harris and that the man with his wife is an impostor. He has the hotel security attempt to contact a friend and colleague in the United States (a man named Rodney Cole, played by Frank Langella), but there is no answer. He has them check his profile on the website of the University he teaches at; the photo is not of him, but of the impostor. Obviously, someone went through a lot of trouble to take his place - but how, and why?
Several occurrences thereafter escalate the tension and assure Martin that he is not crazy - namely the fact that he is being pursued by menacing individuals intent on killing him (discreetly). He tracks down the cab driver that saved his life, Gina (Diane Kruger), in hopes that she will help him, learning in the process that she is an illegal immigrant from Bosnia who is trying to lay low. She is hesitant to get involved, naturally, but once it becomes apparent that the assassins after Martin intend to silence her as well, she has little choice. He then enlists the help of an ex-East Berlin Secret Police officer named Jürgen (portrayed by legendary actor Bruno Ganz, notable for his starring roles as Damiel in Wings of Desire and Adolf Hitler in Downfall). Jürgen begins a bit of investigating while Martin and Gina continue to elude their assassins and attempt to reach Elizabeth, whom Martin is convinced must surely be acting against her will.
Throughout the remainder of the film, most of the mystery unravels, but whether or not the secrets revealed are satisfactory depends entirely on the mindset of the viewer. Does it all really make any sense by the time the credits role? Not really. The answers the viewer receives are often preposterous, but that does not stop the film from being engaging. There are two exciting car chases and a few scenes of action that are generally edited efficiently, though there are moments of cutting between rapid close-ups framed at canted angles that, while I can acknowledged their effect of inviting the viewer into the disorientation of the moment, I do not particularly care for. Still, Unknown is ripe with outstanding performances (particularly from Neeson, Kruger, and Ganz) as well as enough exciting moments to make it a worthwhile thriller, so long as one does not expect the mystery to be laden with explanations grounded in conventional logic.
B+
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