It's a Liam Neeson Movie

Rating: 5/10 (4 March 2011)

It's really hard for me to dislike a Liam Neeson movie. He has an incredible knack for raising an otherwise crappy movie to a fairly enjoyable movie. This is definitely the case with this movie.
Unknown doesn't really have a lot else going for it. It's one of those thrillers that you know has some twist that they're just waiting to reveal, and you know these movies only use about four different twists so it's pretty easy to figure it out. And even though you already sort of know the plot, it's really hard to follow. You'll find yourself asking what's going on constantly because it's not always clear what the characters are trying to do or why they're trying to do it. I know that that's sort of to be expected in a thriller, but not when you're trying to figure out why the guy trying to unravel the mystery is making a phone call.
Even after you figure out what's going on, you realize that the whole plot is full of holes. There's a scene at the end where Liam Neeson is fighting an assassin and gets hit on the head thus restoring his memories(because that's how concussions work, right?). The big twists explained earlier is that Liam Neeson was actually a spy trying to kill a scientist so he can steal his formula for crops that can grow anywhere(this plot point has it's own set of holes, that I don't need to address here). So, Liam Neeson got his memories back and he uses it to remember his assassin training to kill the assassin that was sent in to replace him. But if Liam Neeson got his memories back, wouldn't he go back to a state of wanting to kill the scientist? Wouldn't he remember why he was going to kill him in the first place? I can accept a shoddy story for some movies, but not a thriller that's based around a mystery. It needs to make sense, but this one just doesn't.
But, at least it looks nice and of course, it has Liam Neeson