Unknown (2011) (solid Liam Neeson movie)

Is anybody else here a fan of this movie? I am one. It's not UNBELIEVABLY original... if you try to imagine a combination of the old Harrison Ford movie Frantic (1988) and The Bourne Identity (2002), you can imagine the general idea. There might be some elements of other Jason Bourne movies, and maybe even a little Trading Places (1982), in a totally non-comedy sort of way... and, there is, arguably, a little Resident Evil (2002) in there, too. OK, sorry, this is probably just a confusing way of describing it. As I said, it's not super super super original, but it's gripping, interesting, has some good twists and good performances, and just generally does not feel like a waste of time.

Anyway, yeah, if you are a Liam Neeson fan, you shouldn't miss this one. Without giving too much away: his character and January Jones' character, a married couple, fly into a Berlin airport at the beginning of the movie. They are on their way to some sort of big biotechnology conference... it sounds vaguely impressive and globally elite, but we don't get a super-clear sense of what it's all about, at first.

They take a taxi to their hotel. Liam Neeson is outside the hotel getting their bags out of the taxi, as his wife goes in, to the concierge desk area, to check in. Suddenly Liam N realizes that they accidentally left one of their suitcases at the airport, and he heads back to the airport, without really explaining what's going on to his wife. You can tell he's going to let her know what's happening by phone, but he just has to really hurry back to the airport if he wants to have a prayer of getting their suitcase before some lowlife nabs it. On his way back, his taxi gets in an accident and is thrown into a river (probably the Spree river, I think... is that a famous thing in Berlin?!?!? I had to google it). Liam N is knocked unconscious during the accident, and ends up in a coma. He is in a coma for several days, and when he wakes up in a local hospital he is very disoriented and confused, with some memory loss.

After he wakes up, he goes to see his wife. But... she doesn't recognize him. She has no idea who he is, and is absolutely cold (albeit polite) to him, although they seemed to be very much in love in the earlier scenes. Also, there is another man claiming to be who he thinks he is, and this guy has plenty of ID to prove it, unlike Liam N.

Liam N doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to get into too much trouble with the hotel security guys, and this whole thing is all complicated for him because he doesn't really speak German. Also, it is very cold out, (they say it's four below zero... that's probably in Celsius, but the 20s are still pretty cold if you're afraid you'll have to sleep on a park bench). ALSO, this is all happening on the American Thanksgiving, so the American embassy or consulate services staff are all taking the day off, and are not available to him.

Also, by the way... someone is trying to kill him.

He has no idea what the hell is going on. He still has very limited, unclear memories of who he is. A nurse from the hospital writes down the address of a friend of hers who she says might be able to help him, but she can't communicate much more because her English is not so great, and also because the killer guy kills her, so that affects her ability to communicate.

He ends up connecting with his former taxi driver (Diane Kruger!). They try to figure out what to do, as they are pursued by the killer(s). They go to see the dead nurse's friend, an ex-Stasi secret police operative guy, played by Bruno Ganz. I liked his scenes a lot, you can really see the wheels turning in his mind as he tries to understand what the situation is. He has some interesting interactions with a Frank Langella character who shows up soon. Those might be my favorite scenes in the whole movie, actually, although seeing Liam N in action is also always great of course, and getting to look at January Jones and Diane Kruger for long periods of time doesn't suck either.

So... I shouldn't say much more, but there are great car chases, excellent mayhem in general, and some cool looks at the underclass of refugees from various places in the world, trying to survive in Berlin.

Soooooooo yeah. Check it out!