Review of Unknown (2011) by Alex D — 20 Feb 2008

Scatological cobblers, this. Barely 75 minutes long and nonsensically incoherent, yet reasonably glossy and with a surprisingly stellar cast, this high concept car accident was almost certainly a victim of zealous exec interference in post production.

The concept is deeply derivative but there is definitely potential here for a punchy B-movie; five strangers in varying states of disrepair simultaneously rouse in a dingy warehouse in the middle of a Texan desert. Thanks to an accident involving an unsealed canister of only-in-the-movies nerve toxin, they're now all suffering from chronic amnesia. Some of them are hostages, some of them are kidnappers, and they have until sunset to work out who's who before a post-heist crime kingpin comes to off the dead weight and scarper into the night.

Its a stupid idea, but the concept of isolated men being forced to evaluate their moral codes without knowing which side of the law they exist on, is one that at a couple of junctures threatens to become quite juicy. Sadly, this film is much more interested in treating us to endless botched escape attempts (all gallingly familiar) and more aimless shouting than a film of twice its duration could handle. The writing is so poor that the plot's numerous twists mean absolutely nothing, and the characters are all so badly sketched that they feel like, essentially, the same horribly dull person. A sub-plot involving Bridget Moynahan starts off confusing, before it happily descends down an infuriatingly self-satisfied helter skelter of utter perplexity that reminded me of that hellish Guy Richie fuckwitticism Revolver.

Greg Kinnear is miscast, Peter Stormare is typecast, and James Caviezel is, as usual, about as charismatic as a de-barked tree.

It all adds up to very, very little.