Unknown (2011) - Liam Nesson, Diane Kruger (5/10)
In real life we are often limited to sitting back and taking it. Even the rich and powerful have to sit in gridlock traffic and wait in queues. We can't go around crashing cars through malls, breaking down locked doors and punching any guy in the face who irritates us. That's what Hollywood action stars are for. They provide us the vicarious thrills that otherwise elude the common man. If we do it, we would likely be sitting in a wheelchair, talking through a computer with the side of our face.
So it is a great disappointment when you go into an action movie ---expecting a take charge kinda guy who subverts the evil designs of the villain and reigns supreme--- to be met with a perpetually haggard, over-the-hill, pitiful, lumbering giant who asks his leading lady to do the heavy lifting for him, "Please! help me!" cries Liam Neeson to Diane Kruger. Every time he struggles to move across the screen, you fear he will either dislocate a joint or break his damn hip.
Liam Neeson is involved in a traffic accident abroad (Berlin) and has selective amnesia. He develops gaps in his memory. So when he tries to reconnect with his wife, she feigns any knowledge of him and presents a duplicate husband, who shares his name. That rightly upsets him and he goes about to establish his identity.
And that's where the movie takes a nose dive.
Instead of taking hold of the reins and manipulating events, this guy is a like a castaway on a raft, in the middle of the ocean. Events happen to him. People throw him around. Even young girls slap this grandpa, and he takes it all, lumbering from one disgrace to another. If there was one word to describe him here, it would be "Wimp".
The lovely Diane Kruger is the real hero(ine) of this movie. She saves his ass, time and again, or else our hero would either be at the bottom of a river, or an OD statistic in a parking lot. Wish they had given her the top billing. After all, she did do all the heavy lifting, literally.
There was another Unknown (2006) starring Greg Kinnear that has far better plot, suspense and twists than this unfortunate offering. This movie will just irritate Liam Neeson fans, who have watched his earlier stuff like Taken (2008) and The A-Team (2010), where despite his advanced years (60), he doesn't look it. Here, he looks like a befuddled, senile grandpa, trying to put moves on a girl who's half his age and... twice as fast.
Maybe they should re-release it with the title, "Catch Me If You Can".
