Taken was unexpectedly good, and Unknown‘s marketing relies on pulling in that audience. Again, it’s Liam Neeson in a foreign land with a mystery to solve, but there the similarity ends.
Neeson plays biotech whiz Dr Martin Harris, who arrives in Berlin with his wife Liz (January Jones) for a conference. In search of his lost briefcase, he takes a taxi, which crashes and leaves him in a four-day coma. On awakening, he finds that Aidan Quinn has assumed his identity, pretending that Liz is his wife. Mortifyingly, Liz tells the bewildered hotel staff that she has never met Neeson before.
Thus our hapless protagonist has to try to prove his identity, or come to terms with the realisation that he has gone crazy after all. Along the way he ropes in the aforementioned cabbie (Diane Kruger, Troy) and private investigator Bruno Ganz. Cue lots of guessable plot twists and genuinely tense car chases.
Unknown isn’t in the same league as Taken, or even close, but it would make a superior episode of Spooks. Try to ignore some of the more credibility-stretching moments and relax and enjoy the thrill-ride.
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