Unknown (Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Aidan Quinn) – It’s awful. Truly awful. Disturbingly awful. Implausibly awful. But how do I really feel? For the second time in about two years, Liam Neeson plays an action hero (the other was Taken) with James Bond-worthy talents. Really? At age 58, they wouldn’t hire him as Bond but turned him into one? This time, he plays Dr. Martin Harris, a researcher whose is invited to speak at a conference in Germany by a scientist who is about to announce an incredible breakthrough but whom he has never met. He has talked with him several times on the phone, however. When Harris and his wife, Elizabeth (January Jones, 26 years younger), arrive in Germany, they take a cab to the hotel where the good doctor realizes that his suitcase (which apparently holds everything important to him) isn’t in the trunk. (If it were that important, why did he leave it to the cabbie to put in the taxi let alone carry it himself?) Anyway, as soon as he realizes it, he jumps in another cab and heads back to the airport without even letting his wife know (conveniently, she has gone to check them into the suite in the hotel – nice perk for being a speaker, huh?). On the way to the airport, the cab avoids an accident but ends up in the river where the new cab driver (played by Diane Kruger of the National Treasure films) saves his life but flees the scene.
Believe it or not, the film … and the action … start here. Harris lies in a coma for four days, then checks out of the hospital, and goes back to the hotel. There, he tries to convince the head of security that he belongs at the conference even though he doesn’t have any ID. His passport was in his briefcase, of course. Finally, he sees his wife, who doesn’t recognize him at all. Worse, she is at a cocktail party with her husband, Dr. Martin Harris, played by Aidan Quinn. Even the host of the conference, the aforementioned scientist who spoke to Harris several times, doesn’t recognize him despite the fact that Neeson speaks in an Irish accent and Quinn is American. Plus, wouldn’t a speaker at an international conference have a picture in the program?
Yes, there is more going on here. This is actually a spy yarn with a mystery foreign dignitary involved. And someone wants to kill someone – is it the professor? The dignitary? The first Martin Harris? The second Martin Harris. Better yet, the Director of the movie?
I promise not to reveal more because, if you want to waste your money (I did), who am I to stop you? And if you already did, I’m so sorry. Rent Taken, it’s a much better movie.