Unknown (2011 film)

Plot

Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Liz (January Jones) arrive in Berlin for a biotechnology summit. At the hotel, Martin realises his briefcase was not in the taxi he just arrived in and must still be at the airport, so takes another taxi to retrieve it. On the way, the taxi is involved in an accident and crashes into the Spree, knocking Martin unconscious. The driver, Gina (Diane Kruger), rescues him and flees the scene, as she is an illegal immigrant from Bosnia. Martin regains consciousness at a hospital after having been in a coma for four days.

When Martin returns to the hotel, he discovers Liz with another man, and she claims to not know him. Martin is arrested by the police. He decides to phone a colleague in the States, Prof. Rodney Cole (Frank Langella) but reaches only his voice mail. Aboard a train, Martin writes down his schedule for the next day by memory. Martin visits the office of Prof. Leo Bressler (Sebastian Koch), whom he is scheduled to meet, but sees the impostor, "Martin B" (Aidan Quinn), already there. As Martin attempts to prove his identity, Martin B shows him his ID and family photo, both of which have the impostor's face. Overwhelmed by the identity crisis, Martin falls unconscious, then finds himself back at the hospital. Smith (Olivier Schneider), an assassin sent to target Martin, kills a nurse, Gretchen Erfurt (Eva Löbau), but Martin escapes.

He seeks help from Erfurt's friend, private investigator and former Stasi agent Ernst Jürgen (Bruno Ganz). Martin's only clues are his father's book on Botany and Gina, who since the crash now works at a diner. While Martin persuades Gina to help him, Jürgen digs up information related to Martin and the biotechnology summit. He discovers the summit will be attended by Prince Shada (Mido Hamada) of Saudi Arabia, who is funding a secret project headed by Bressler. Prince Shada has survived numerous assassination attempts by extremists in his own country, and Jürgen suspects that Martin's identity theft might be part of another attempt.

At Gina's apartment, Smith and another terrorist, Jones (Stipe Erceg), attack; the couple escapes after Gina kills Smith. In his book, Martin finds that Liz has written a series of numbers that correspond to words found specific pages. Using his schedule, Martin confronts Liz alone; she tells him he left his briefcase at the airport. Meanwhile, Jürgen receives Cole at his office and where he reveals his findings about a secretive assassination group known as 'Section 15'. Jürgen soon deduces that Cole is a former mercenary and potent killer from the group. Knowing Cole is here to kill him and he has no way of escaping, Jürgen commits suicide by ingesting cyanide to protect Martin from Section 15.

After retrieving his briefcase, Martin parts ways with Gina. When she sees him kidnapped by Cole and Jones, she steals a taxicab and chases them. When Martin wakes, Cole says Martin Harris is a cover name in the Section 15 assassin team including Liz to target the summit. Liz notified Cole that Martin injured his head during the car crash altering his memory and causing him to believe his false Martin Harris persona was his own identity. Cole explains, that's why Martin B was activated as his replacement. Gina runs over Jones before he can kill Martin, then rams Cole's van, killing him. After Martin finds a hidden compartment in his briefcase containing two Canadian passports, he remembers that he and Liz were in Berlin three months prior to plant a bomb in the suite to be occupied by Prince Shada.

Now aware of his own role in the assassination plot, Martin seeks to redeem himself by thwarting it. He heads to the hotel with Gina. Security immediately arrests them, but Martin convinces them of his presence in the hotel three months earlier. Liz uses her own copy of the book's secret codes to remotely access Bressler's laptop and steal the data. After being convinced of the bomb's presence, security evacuates the hotel.

Martin suddenly realizes that Prince Shada is not the target, but Bressler, who has developed a genetically modified breed of corn capable of surviving harsh climates. With Bressler's death and the theft of his research, billions of dollars would fall into the wrong hands. Seeing their assassination attempt has been foiled, Liz dies attempting to disarm the bomb. Martin kills Martin B, the last remaining Section 15 terrorist, before the latter can murder Bressler. Bressler announces that he is giving his project to the world for free, while Martin and Gina board a train together with new passports and identities.

Cast

Many German actors were cast for the film. Bock had previously starred in Inglourious Basterds (which also starred Diane Kruger) and The White Ribbon. Other cast includes Adnan Maral as a Turkish taxi driver and Petra Schmidt-Schaller as an immigration officer. Kruger herself is also German, despite playing a non-German character.

Production

Principal photography took place in early February 2010 in Berlin, Germany, and in the Studio Babelsberg film studios. The bridge the taxi plunges from is the Oberbaumbrücke. The Friedrichstraße was blocked for several nights for the shooting of a car chase. Some of the shooting was done in the Hotel Adlon. Locations include the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin Friedrichstraße station, Pariser Platz, Museum Island, the Oranienburger Straße in Berlin and the Leipzig/Halle Airport. According to Andrew Rona, the budget was $40 million. Producer Joel Silver's US company Dark Castle Entertainment contributed $30 million. German public film funds supported the production with €4.65 million (more than $6 million). The working title was Unknown White Male.

Release

Unknown was screened out of competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival.

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 55% of 191 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 5.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Liam Neeson elevates the proceedings considerably, but Unknown is ultimately too derivative – and implausible – to take advantage of its intriguing premise." Metacritic gives the film a 56/100 based on 38 reviews. Richard Roeper gave the film a B+ and wrote, "At times, Unknown stretches plausibility to the near breaking point, but it's so well paced and the performances are so strong and most of the questions are ultimately answered. This is a very solid thriller." Justin Chang of Variety called it "an emotionally and psychologically threadbare exercise". Overall, Unknown was a strong box office hit and scored a number one opening at its first week of release. 13.2 million tickets were sold in 29 territories.