I may be off base with the Taken comparisons…
… on the other hand.
You’re married, have been for a long time. You love your missus. She loves you.
You go on a working holiday to another country, to attend a conference where you are a key note speaker. It should be a gold star day for you. The wife is by your side beaming…
But there’s a hitch. The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel. Luggage missing. Important luggage. Your notes for the trip and your ID.
Upon realisation you immediately hail another taxi and head back…
And so begins Unknown, Liam Neeson’s second attempt at a Taken like unexpected hit. Without Taken a few years back, Unknown wouldn’t exist, in fact this is the sort of script that Jean-Claude Van Damme would’ve been all over in the 90s, hardly wide release stuff.
But Taken hit big. So here we – and Mr Neeson – are.
Neeson is Dr Martin Harris, when he realises that he has left essential information at the airport taxi rank he doesn’t even bother to inform wife Liz (January Jones) that he is heading back for it. He hails the first cab which happens to be driven by Gina (Diane Kruger) and heads back to the airport. But a major traffic accident that ends with Harris nearly dying and him being dragged from icy waters by Gina is the real spanner in the works.
Harris wakes from his coma four days later. No-one is there to welcome him beside hospital staff. His wife is not there nor his family. Harris also has no ID, so he checks himself out and heads to the hotel and the gala welcome summit to re-introduce himself and assure everyone that he is OK.
At least that’s the plan. No-one – not even Liz – recognises him as Dr Martin Harris, and why would they when another Dr Martin Harris is already there!?! After some obvious confusion on ex-coma Harris’ behalf and a brief plea the hotel staff look into the situation, using the internet and Harris “2’s” ID documents… and side with the new guy.
Neeson-Harris is sent back to the hospital to ‘get his head right’. He has no ID, minimal cash, no-one in his corner and no idea what the hell is going on.
Wife.
So he decides to get to the bottom of the situation,and with the aid of an elderly German private investigator he tries to piece together his life, starting with taxi driver Gina (Diane Kruger: Who looks a lot like January Jones to me) who ends up accompanying Neeson-Harris for much of his search.
We’ve seen this film before, and often it is better than Unknown turns out to be. Long Kiss Goodnight was more trashy fun, and of course the Bourne films were some of the better action films of the last decade.
Not wife.
We can see from the poster where Neeson is holding a pistol that this won’t end up a Finding Nemo or Sweet Home Alabama clone, so we know a certain element of violence is inevitable. And there is some action, violence and fatalities, some at the hands of Neeson-Harris himself. But the character lacks the skills of the lead in Taken (aside from being able to drive at top speed through and against heavy traffic on icy roads in a German city!). In Unknown Dr Harris is actually surprised when people die in front of him!
Unknown ends up to be mildly intriguing for a while; ‘Is he nuts?’ ‘Is it a complicated conspiracy?’ ‘Identity theft?’ ‘An inexplicable mistake?’ You guess and second guess for a few minutes but once the answer finally is lazily delivered to you during what Syndrome from The Incredibles would term a ‘monologue’ you immediately start counting down to the credits.
Once the film concludes and you run through the events with the benefit of hindsight even though the plot hangs together alright it still isn’t that satisfying a film, but Neeson as always gives his all and lends a little class to what should by rights be a straight to DVD affair. He obviously likes this action stuff, and strangely enough he’s very good at it.
Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. A couple of good moments but Neeson fails to replicate the success of Taken. (I know I mentioned Taken too much: I just love me some Taken.)
One last thought: Why do ‘top secret’ bugs, tracking devices and the like all need blinking lights to draw attention to themselves? Standing out and drawing attention would seem to be non-ideal choice for cladenstine, low key equipment.
