Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Unknown (2011)

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Writers: Oliver Butcher, Stephen Cornwell, Didier Van Cauwelaert

Composers: John Ottman, Alexander Rudd

Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Aidan Quinn, Bruno Ganz, Frank Langella, Sebastian Koch, Olivier Schneider, Stipe Erceg

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Take back your life.

Plot:  A man awakens from a coma, only to discover that someone has taken on his identity and that no one, (not even his wife), believes him. With the help of a young woman, he sets out to prove who he is.



My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes. 

Thrillers, like any genre but more so, are hit and miss.  To be really effective they have to grab you by the short and curlies and hold on until the end and that's not easy.  Hell, any level of suspense will do.  For me, this one worked very well and it did just that.  My heart rate didn't increase much, if any, but it did a good job of not only holding my attention but keeping the tension and fulfilling a goal of giving a good and satisfying ending.  After it was over I began to wonder how I would've handled being in Neeson's shoes or, at the very least, what it must be like to have amnesia.  And then I moved on and slapped some sloppy exploitation picture in to further my cinematic education.  It's a good action thriller that's more grounded in reality and with few plot holes, if any, to get in the way.  The Warner Bros. DVD has a nice anamorphic widescreen print with only one extra and that's a lousy four and a half minute fluff piece describing the film.  There's not even a trailer.

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