Unknown

When your life has become a wide-awake nightmare of utter sorrow, I'd say its a good time to go to the movies.  If its a good movie its a good movie, if its a bad movie you have something to complain about other than the misery that's drowned your existence.  So that's exactly what I did:

"Unknown" is weirdly enough the very first 2011 film I have ever seen.  So far there just has not been anything that looked even remotely interesting, and "Unknown" is not immune.  I basically saw this movie out of sheer desperation to see any movie, just as long as it wasn't "Justin Bieber's Never Say Never"* or "Big Momma's House 3".  When you're this desperate, you just find an actor you like and go see his newest movie.  Liam Neeson is awesome in just about everything he does, from "Ponyo" to "Love Actually" to "Star Wars", so "Unknown" literally could not fail.  And it didn't, so I guess it we all had a happy ending.  Plus the overwhelming misfortune in my life has gotten a bit better, so I suppose its time to write a post again.

"Unknown" is an interesting film because you are never entirely sure where the movie is going to go.  Liam Neeson goes to Berlin with his pretty wife half his age, but after an accident has lost all identification.  Then another man has taken his place and his wife does not recognize him.  Has he gone insane?  Or is there something larger at work here?  What we have here is a decent enough thriller with a very elegant final twist.  Definitely a good way to spend an afternoon.

I find it interesting that Liam Neeson attained most of his fame playing super-saints like Oscar Schindler, Qui-Gon Jinn, Aslan, and VIctor Hugo's attempt to out-Christ Christ, Jean Valjean.  Speaking of the Messiah, his first role was Jesus in a movie nobody remembers anymore aside from IMDB.  But now as time has elapsed, after a passage to evil in "Batman Begins", he's now become a weird kind of action star.  After murdering half the population of Paris in "Taken", he's now moved on to bring destruction to Berlin in "Unknown".  I guess next year we go to Warsaw?  When will Europe learn to stop messing with Liam Neeson**?

Also, when will Hollywood stop trying to cast Liam Neeson as an American?  There's no way on Earth he could ever have been born anywhere west of Keny.  Of course, his sage-like rusty Irish tone is far superior to our boring US accent, so I'm not complaining.

Before ultimately deciding to be an action-adventure, "Unknown" plays with your perceptions of what its going to be.  Every so often there are little camera tricks like tilted angles to show not only Liam Neeson's confusion but perhaps his unhinged mental state.  At one point in a bar the screen starts to fade out like Neeson is losing consciousness.  So you're never entirely sure if its a giant conspiracy or if Liam Neeson is completely insane or if he's in Hell after dying in Vietnam.  The movie never does go down the "supernatural" route, but it does keep up a nice facade of mystery right up until the big reveal.

But before the big reveal "Unknown" decides to give us one of the best car chases I've seen in a few years.  Its all pretty basic fair, rapid stick shifts in the midst of a crowd, driving backwards away from the pursuer, the car stalling on train tracks.  Its an oldie but a goodie.  Its made even better by the fact that Neeson's character is inexplicably an insanely good driver.  I mean this guy must be one of "Top Gear"'s the Stig's cousins or something.  And to the movie's credit, the final twist manages to explain away the formula-1 skills as well.

The supporting roles are all well done.  Bruno Ganz does a fine run as an ex-Stasi detective who teams up with Liam Neeson to find the truth.  (This leads to the disturbing implication of Adolf Hitler and Alfred Schindler working together.)  Then Frank Langella appears briefly as a mastermind villain, basically playing the same role he always does.  Though I gotta say the first bad guy that Neeson encounters, a freaky vaguely androgynous German with a poison needle.  He's just sinister and weird enough to seem like he might be an illusion, which is much to this movie's favor.

"Unknown" isn't a particularly ambitious or pioneering film, but it does what it set out to do:  create a nice basic mystery film that leads up to some pretty awesome action scenes.  Everything just kinda works here, like "Devil" did last year.  Not perfect, not a game changer, but effective entertainment.  And there's nothing wrong with that.

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* MTV - in a fit of what can only be called utter and complete insanity - has approached me to direct the next Justin Bieber movie.  The script is half finished, and I have a title:  "One Night in Bieber - Part 1:  Bieber Fever".  Usher and a trained gerbil are co-starring.

** HORRIBLE SPOILER THAT WILL RUIN THE MOVIE, DO NOT READ:  In the final twist it turns out the Liam Neeson actually is an ultra secret badass assassin-dude.  So humorously, it may just be that his character in "Unknown" is the same guy from "Taken".  In this movie he was actually working with the bad guys from the start, only to lose his memory, and then once he has it back he decides to ruin the bad guy's plans just out of pure revenge.  This leads to an incredible "oh shi--" moment when Neeson gives this one-liner at the bad guy "I remember enough to kill you, asshole!"  Badass...