UNKNOWN (Jaume Collet-Serra)

-

Liam Neeson is scary when he gets mad. He has that brooding physique, and his husky voice will threaten everyone in proximity. In UNKNOWN, he screams at hotel security who are just doing their job, which is proof enough Neeson is one of those guys you don't want to get angry in real life (in line with Mel Gibson, Colin Farrell, and Sean Penn). 

At times the movie feels like it tries hard to be BOURNE, what with all the memory loss and the assassins. The character of Neeson here looks like his character in TAKEN, a similarly-themed thriller set in a European country, and there are instances where the events can only have been incepted in Hollywood.

Countless times does the film ignore logic. The big revelation towards the climax is a big "What!?", yet the pacing and exposition afterwards and Neeson's authenticity as a hero character saves the film from mediocrity.

An American biochemist, Dr. Martin Harris (Neeson) and his wife, Liz (January Jones) visit Berlin to attend a biochemistry conference. After an unfateful road accident, Dr. Harris wakes up to find his wife not knowing who he is, and somebody claiming to be him.

He then goes to search for clues and seeks to recover his identity and his life. With the help of the taxicab driver (Diane Kruger) and a retired spy (Bruno Ganz), Harris ultimately faces with the shocking truth about who he is and what his purpose in Berlin.

Kruger is the good samaritan in this movie, a character who may be rare in present society, but add a backstory of her being an illegal immigrant and you fill the gaping hole of logic.

Ganz is compelling as a retired spy. I still see him as the ferocious Adolf Hitler (from DOWNFALL) and him and Frank Langella alone in a single room just ignites sparks. Two veteran actors wielding their wisdom against each other is one of this film's highlights.

A lot more can be improved in the script, but UNKNOWN is passable as a solid thriller that knows how to build momentum.

RATING: 3/5

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TUHOG (Jeffrey Jeturian)

-
Image
Film within a film-structured movies are always interesting watch. Not only do they provide a much-needed deconstruction of form and content of cinema itself, but also that much-needed emotional punch a cinephile would surely love.  Like in BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar, 2004), we witness the characters tell the back story via montage, as if we are part of the cast of characters watching an actual movie. The form was successful in evoking pain and regret, and also of empathy. In TUHOG, Jeffrey Jeturian and screenwriter Bing Lao tackles sensational media in the Philippines, especially in cinema. The film opens as a film producer hears a pitch for a possible movie- a story of a grandfather who rapes his own granddaughter.  The director of the film soon after visits the victim of the crime, Floring (Ina Raymundo). Coercing both she and her mother, Perla (Irma Adlawan) to sell them the movie rights to their story, we witness as exploitation cinema unfolds. To think of it, capitalizing on ta
Read more

ANINO SA LIKOD NG BUWAN (Jun Lana, 2015)

-
Image
* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn'
Read more

A study of spaces in Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit's 'Happy Old Year'

-
Image
Space is both an overarching theme and visual signifier in Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit's Happy Old Year . Its protagonist, Jean (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying) comes home from a lengthy stay abroad, determined to declutter her life, and along with it, old things that belong to a past she is desperately running away from. As we watch Jean plan the redesign of their family house into a more spacious and minimalist residential office, we also witness the transformation of the persons that inhabit the house, as well as their connection to other people, most of them absent from the frame. Jean the destroyer Millennials have often been criticized for being rash with their actions, and for having their way, no matter what. The filmmaker, a millennial himself, understands this stigma, and subliminally argues that millennials are the way they are because of a multitude of factors: rising cost of living, the evolution of discourse as a result of technology (such as film streaming se
Read more