A few quibbles, but generally a fine attempt at a thriller

Rating: Null/10 (10 October 2011)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Elizabeth (January Jones) arrive in Berlin for a press conference. Suddenly realising he has left his briefcase at the airport, Harris dashes back off to get it...only to be involved in a traffic accident where he nearly drowns and is saved only by heroic female taxi driver Gina (Diane Kruger.) But when one nightmare ends, another one begins when he goes back to his hotel and finds his wife has no idea who he is, and another man (Aidan Quinn) has assumed his identity. As he goes about trying to make sense of his predicament, he finds he really may not be who he thinks he is and people want him dead.
The thriller is a genre that tends to work best when it's pitted with something high concept, maybe something slightly far fetched but with a new angle on the genre formula. Although the stolen identity plot line has been done before (though in nothing that immediately springs to mind) Jaume Collet-Serra's European centred thriller still manages to be an intriguing effort, where you are genuinely, if not quite on the edge of your seat, certainly very interested in finding out how it will develop and what will happen next. Somehow it doesn't quite maintain standards to the end, where, as is the case sometimes, the concept disintegrates and it starts to verge into preposterousness, but the mysterious story at the heart of it all still keeps you hooked and unravels in a way you really don't expect.
Performances wise, Neeson has a solid presence as ever in the lead role, his deep, powerful Irish brogue (in the guise of an American accent) carrying him with a natural authority and making him well cast to the role, while as the main female sidekick Kruger takes on an unusually unglamourous role and invests some energy in it (her noble illegal immigrant role perhaps having a leftie political subtext to it.) In other supporting roles, Jones and Quinn have less to do, possibly because of their more limited screen time, while more extended support including the likes of Bruno Ganz, Frank Langella and Sebastian Koch are even more wasted. Still, the solid leads the film has are all it really needs to give it edge.
There is this and that you could nit pick about the film, but in this uninspired age, it's encouraging to see a thriller that at least seems to be trying to do something new and take the genre somewhere it hasn't gone before. ***