Unknown

Another one of those US-made ersatz Euro thrillers that Liam Neeson seems to be so fond of making these days. This one seems to be something of a cross between The Bourne Identity and Frantic, but of course, not nearly as good as either.

So, Neeson is Martin Harris, a biotechnology professor from the US. He's in Berlin for a conference, and to meet a German biotechnology professor he's been corresponding with. When he and his wife are checking into the hotel, he realises that his briefcase has been left at the airport (and somehow not blown up in a controlled explosion by the German security services) and so he rushes back there to find it. As he rushes, the taxi he's in has an accident and goes off a bridge into a river. He languishes in a coma for about a week, wakes up, and rushes off to find his wife, who he realises must be going spare, since the hospital weren't able to ID him, and she presumably couldn't find him.

He arrives back at the hotel, however, to find that she's got over him and moved on with her life, to such an extent that she's got a new Doctor Martin Harris for a husband, played by Aiden Quinn (who's a lot chubbier than you remember him) and everybody including her swears blind that they have no idea who Neeson is. Aiden Quinn's got all the proof on his side that he's the real Martin Harris, and Neeson sort of just staggers out of there in confusion, assisted from the premises by hotel security.

And thus starts his quest to work out what the hell is going on.

Now. Here's a thing. I can score highly on a standard IQ test. Higher, perhaps, than my intelligence merits. This is the case because I am test literate. I know these tests of old, I know the forms, I know the tricks. Hence, when it comes to IQ tests, I appear more intelligent than I am. And it seems that perhaps, the same is true of identity based espionage thrillers. Throw me the absolute basics of the plot, and I'll tell you what the twist is. And I can tell you, with no exaggeration, that I was able to tell you exactly what was going on in this film after watching the trailer. And I'm not patting myself on the back here; chances are, if you saw the trailer, and are moderately espionage-thriller literate, you will too.

Liam Neeson, however, despite his absolute veteran status in this kind of film, does not spot the twist immediately, so it's down to him to plod ponderously through the plot until the third act, at which point everything becomes clear to him, and his need to challenge the fake-Martin-Harris and prevent Disaster becomes all too urgent, and it's all over bar quite a bit of shouting.

It's not a badly made film, but there's little original about it, and perhaps that's why it's so easy to see through. It's like a jigsaw that's much easier because you're intimately familiar with the picture you're trying to put together. As such, it's destined to go down in history as "That thriller Liam Neeson was in. No, not that one, the other one."