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Missed Taken Identity

For those of you who missed Roman Polanski's under-appreciated 1988 Harrison Ford thriller, "Frantic", do yourselves a favor and rent (or stream) it from Netflix rather than running out to see "Unknown", the latest version of the American-caught-in-a-foreign-city formula. The film stars Liam Neeson, whose recent "Taken" was another similar (and slightly superior) example. "Unknown" is sort of the inverse of "Frantic". Instead of a man unable to find his wife, Mr. Neeson's character can find her - but she (and everyone else, for that matter) doesn't know who he is.

The wife in question is played by January Jones, desperately trying to distance herself from her "Mad Men" character. She's accompanying her loving husband - Mr. Neeson's Dr. Martin Harris - to an important biochemistry conference. It seems Dr. Harris, a botanist, is on the agenda to give a speech. A pity, then, that he leaves his briefcase - containing his passport and all other identification - at the airport. Worse still, he doesn't realize it until he and his wife get to their hotel.

At this point - about five minutes in, mind you - the film should have changed its name from "Unknown" to "Unlikely". Realizing he lost his briefcase, Dr. Harris jumps in a cab without telling his wife, leaving her alone at the hotel check-in desk. He tries to call her, but his phone gets no signal - in the middle of Berlin. Then the cab gets in a horrible accident and winds up sinking in the river. The cabbie, played by Diane Kruger (did I mention the unlikeliness of all this?), rescues him and runs away, leaving Dr. Harris in a coma with no identification.

Whew. The plot contortions are enough to give a screenwriter a hernia.

In this case, the screenwriters are Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell - working from the lightly existential novel "Out of My Head" by Didier Van Cauwelaert - and they earn their pay trying construct some semblance of sense around this setup. But when it appears that Dr. Harris' identity has been stolen and that he has been replaced by an imposter - played to unintentionally comedic effect by Aidan Quinn - no amount of explanation will really suffice. When the endgame is finally revealed, the result is less of an "ah ha!" than an "oh, come on". Let's just say there are much simpler ways to get the same job done.

Mr. Neeson is an eminently watchable actor, and to say he's wasted here is an insult to "Taken". There are moments early in "Unknown" when it's hard to tell if Dr. Harris is aghast at his situation or if it's a bit of Mr. Neeson shining though, thinking that his reason for choosing this project is what's truly unknown.