Suspenseful and Mysterious

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2011)

This would rate as a pretty typical suspense/thriller - which means that there's a lot in it which you just can't take very seriously, but that's OK. It's not meant to be taken seriously. It's to be judged on the basis of how wild the ride is that gets you to the finish, and by that standard this movie works pretty well. There's a lot of mystery, pretty much right off the top, there are people getting killed all over the place and there are two pretty wild car chases through the streets of Berlin. When you add to that a pretty solid cast led by Liam Neeson, you end up with a pretty good and exciting story - a fantasy, certainly, but suspenseful and mysterious, which is what the movie was intended to be.
Neeson heads the cast as Dr. Martin Harris, a botanist in Berlin to attend a Conference at which a new strain of corn is to be revealed - one that's resistant to drought and other natural blights and that will help end the world food shortage. But things go wrong from the beginning. He gets into a car accident, ends up in a coma, and when he wakes up no one - not even his wife (played by an actress named January Jones) - remembers who he is, or believes he's Dr. Martin Harris - and in fact there's another Dr. Martin Harris who's taken his place who everyone accepts as THE Dr. Martin Harris. The mystery around his identity takes a lot of twists and turns and keeps the viewer guessing until the mystery is revealed, ultimately leading up to the climax of the movie: a foiled assassination attempt.
It's a decent movie; a fun movie to watch. It's not to be taken too seriously. It's to be looked at for its entertainment value in the action/suspense genre. From that perspective, it holds up pretty well. (7/10)