Generic thriller that is still better than most.

Rating: 5/10 (14 July 2011)

Even with some relatively decent car chase/street scenes and an intriguing premise of one "losing his mind", Unknown felt generic to me.
Liam Neeson (Taken, Schindler's List, Chloe) is in Berlin for a conference with his wife January Jones (X-Men: First Class, "Mad Men", Bandits). As she is checking into their hotel, he realizes a bag was left at the airport and he returns to get it ... only to be in an automobile accident which leaves him comatose for four days. When he awakens, he is not who he believed/remembers himself to be.
Stranded in a foreign city with only his cab driver (Diane Kruger - Troy, Inglourious Basterds, National Treasure) "remembering him", he sets out to discover why his past is so secretive and how come he vividly remembers ONLY portions of it. As his wife no longer knows who he is, her husband (now played by Aidan Quinn -- Michael Collins, Jonah Hex, Legends of the Fall) has his name but isn't HIM! Neeson finds himself working against all odds to figure out the mystery behind himself.
While there is nothing technically wrong with Unknown, there just isn't anything spectacular about it either. The plot grows and builds and bit-by-bit our "hero" puts all of the pieces back together again (think Memento ... only not in reverse and not as good). That the cast was so nice to look at and the film had such a frenzied pace in a foreign locale, Unknown reminded me of the 1988 Harrison Ford flick, Frantic.
Without giving too much of it away, it is easy to say that Unknown is as generic as it's name. All pieced together it comes out as a new film; but taken apart piece-by-piece one can see what Unknown shares with every other known suspense/thriller of mistaken identity Hollywood has ever given us. It is fine (and better than many) ... just don't expect anything shockingly new or original with Unknown.