Unknown (2011)

With the sleeper success of 2009's Taken, an aging Liam Neeson has certified himself as one of the leading action heroes of the 21st Century.  Unknown marks Neeson's return to the genre of film that help breath new life into his career and bring forth a new generation of fans.  Some say it's a cross between Taken and The Bourne Identity, all you really need to know is it's a great thriller that shouldn't be missed.

Neeson stars has Dr. Martin Harris, arriving in Germany with his wife (played by January Jones) for a scentific conference where he's scheduled to speak at.  When they arrive at the hotel Martin realizes he's left his briefcase with his notes and identification at the airport, in a rush to retrieve it he leaves his wife at the hotel and grabs a cab.  In an attempt to get there faster he asks the driver (Diane Kruger) to take a quicker route, a route that leads them in the path of a falling refridgerator from the back of a truck and a domino effect that sends their taxi into the river.

The driver, Gina, manages to escape the submerged cab and returns to rescue Martin, whose hit his head and is unconious, when he awakes in the hospital from a coma four days later he's shocked to learn his wife is not by his side.  But the real shock occurs when he returns to the hotel and discovers she doesn't know who he is and there's another man mascerading as him!  Tossed out on the street Martin begins an searching for the answers as to why someone would want to impersonate him and how he can get his life back.

Unknown has been on my radar ever since the release of the first trailer, and Neeson's last thriller Taken was not only one of my favorite films of 2009 but also one of the best action thrillers in recently memory.  Now a lot of people are making a comparison of Unknown to Taken because via the trailer they look similar, but in a broad sense both films are quite different.  Taken is much more action oriented compared to Unknown, gun fights and hand to hand combats are almost MIA in this film, and believe it or not Neeson never touches a gun!  Taken is also much more fast paced, where Unknown doesn't move as fast in terms of plot and flow of the film.  But the biggest difference is Unknown is more of a mystery / suspense as the character and the viewer are searching for answers, where in Taken there was no mystery, only reconnaissance.  For me Unknown was more a mash up of The Fugitive during the first half and The Bourne Identity in the second, with a very well written twist near the ending that I surely didn't see coming.

As a whole Unknown is a solid suspense, Neeson is as consistent and riveting as always, I've always loved Diane Kruger, the action is good, the story is great and the mystery and plot twist is extremely well setup and executed.  My only qualms about the film is I would have liked to seen a little more action out of Neeson this time around, but I understand doing that would have severely altered the story.  The pace of the film is a little slow at times (compared to Taken which moves unbelievably fast), and I was extremely underwhelmed by the performance of January Jones who has seemed to have garnered a lot of popularity in the last year or so.  Overall, Unknown is an above average thriller, I'd give a slight edge to films like Taken and The Bourne Identity but it definitely has a leg up on most of the past competition.

8/10