Nothing new except the Germany factor

Rating: 6/10 (4 March 2011)

This intriguing psycho thriller really offers nothing quite interesting or new to any one that has seen "XIII", "The Bourne Trilogy", "Wrong identity" and similar movies. A man suffers from amnesia and is looking for his identity and it is quite quickly obvious what his secrets are if you happen to know the mentioned movies.
This being said, the movie is still very entertaining and well acted even though there are many clichés. The rich professor must be helped by a poor illegal immigrant girl and the bad boys seem always to be perfectly organized and chase the haunted without pity. The usual car chases and execution scenes underline the lack of originality of the movie. The only thing that distinguishes this movie from many others is the fact that it takes place in Berlin and that many well known and promising German actors got a few roles in this movie and take their chances to convince a larger public. As I happen to be from Germany, I found it interesting to see such a polished psycho thriller take place at famous and infamous locations of the German capital and the movie gives a very little glimpse at the culture of this city by showing its beautiful and ugly sides. This movie creates a certain wanders lust to go and discover the city and makes a good publicity for the country.
After all, once you accepted the weak and ripped off story, you really get well entertained and see a solid acting and nice shooting places. I wouldn't suggest to go to the cinema for this movie as it is quite overrated and I wouldn't buy a copy of it in a couple of months, but I would really suggest to rent this movie for a night if you feel for it and in that way, you won't be disappointed if you slow your expectations down as I did. If you found the main idea interesting but you didn't like the movie, go for the ones I have mentioned in the beginning that are fairly better.