Unknown

The Flick: Unknown

The Peeps: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Aidan Quinn, Bruno Ganz (!)

The Dealio: An overkill of supremely lovey-dovey shots acquaints us with the main folk in this story: Dr Martin Harris (Neeson) and his lovely spouse, Liz (January Jones, who only does the one deer-in-the-headlights look) on board an airplane, headed for Berlin for some sort of international meeting of the heavy hitters in the agri-science scene. After forgetting his attache at the airport (don't ask), he cabs back to pick it up. Or tries to do so. An encounter with a fridge on the rampage on the Autobahn results in both cabbie Kruger and passenger Harris doing a swan dive over a bridge abutment. Kruger pulls the unconscious Harris from the cab, attempts resuscitation, then melts into the crowd when the coppers show. Awakening after four days in a coma, Harris ' memory is of the Swiss cheese variety and he slowly struggles to align the pieces together, slipping niblets of 411 into what he thinks must be their correct places, only to be told, by one and all, that he has made a terrible mistake. To prove just how terrible this mistake is, people begin trying to kill not only Harris, but everyone who has come into contact with him. Whut the aitch is going on here?

The Grading Session: 3.75 pengies out of 5. Saw this one with Prendie and he is not a major fan of the 'How can they turn everyone you ever met against you? How can EVERYbody be in on the plot?' school of paranoid film-making. However, this was definitely an action-packed show and you simply could not fall asleep for the duration. However, you also could not afford to go to the restrooms, either. I found the constant whipping around to look over the shoulder increasingly tedious as the clocked ticked on for the second hour of the film. Almost when it was too late did we get to meet Ganz' intrepid 'always one step ahead of the unknown enemy' PI and get a chance to see Neeson suddenly recall that one thing he does really, really, really well is kick some touchus. I live for that stuff and was beginning to wonder if we would ever get the pay-off.

Lessons Learned: January Jones is not a gifted actress. Think I guessed that from her stint as guest host on SNL, but super-nice to have it confirmed. Next: Reality and the return of memory are not all they are cracked up to be...'cause then, you sort of have to deal with the big reveal. Lastly: old secret policemen do not die...unless they want to. They simply continue to accrue factoids and incriminating evidence...and learn to navigate the Internet, apparently. Oh yeah, and steal every scene in which they are featured as 'support'.