Review of Unknown (2011) by Filipeneto — 23 May 2020

Personally, I liked this movie. It starts well, with an American academic who arrives in Berlin with his wife, and everything seems fine until an accident happens. When he wakes up in the hospital, he finds that no one knows who he is and he has no documents. Worse: someone is using his identity and living his life out there.

The script has good premises and I felt that it fulfils what it promises. The film is full of suspense and good action scenes and will certainly satisfy those who came in search of an intense thriller with few dead moments. In between, there are several twists and turns that help to keep our interest and to maintain the film rolling. The most complicated will be to consider the story credible enough, but if the audience is willing to give the film a chance by forgetting this difficult point, the film can make up for it.

The cast does a good job. Liam Neeson is good and does an excellent job, but the fact is that he is making a kind of character in which he feels comfortable, so he does not surprise us. Diane Kruger is the most striking female character with a particularly good performance. Bruno Ganz, in his first work that I saw after "Downfall", is very good at and adds a lot of quality to the film. On the other hand, Frank Langhella is good but has little screen time, January Jones does nothing special and Aidan Quinn is uninteresting. The interaction between actors is uneven and some dialogues sound theatrical.

Technically, the film is quite solid. It has a good cinematography and was very well filmed, using the light and shadow to intensify the suspense and create atmosphere. Expertly directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, it has well-done action scenes, very decent special, visual and sound effects and a post-production work that was generally well done. Not being free of flaws or minor problems, I think its a film that delivers what it promises and can really entertain the audience.