UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN (PG-13 for sequences of violence, brief sexual content):  While "The King's Speech" is mounted with the support of a brilliant script, the next two flicks disappoint with "been there, done that" material so familiar it doesn't take long before one either snickers at its predictability or packs up & returns home for better things to do - like reading yesterday's newspaper.

A pity in this case, because there's a kernel of interest in the characters and their involvement in assassination plots taking place in postwar Berlin.

Liam Neeson is Dr. Martin Harris, an American botanist, scheduled to lecture at a biotech conference.  Things happen before he can fulfill his delivery; he loses his luggage, nearly drowns, is hospitalized after the freak accident, is almost murdered, flees the hospital to find that his identity has been wiped out; his hotel won't admit him, his American colleagues are unreachable, and his wife (January  Jones) is living it up with a man (Aidan Quinn) who seems to have taken over Martin's life in every way. 

Shades of "Bourne Identity" seep in, but without the verve, the thrilling pace, nor the ability to sustain suspenseful interest.  Enter a spunky Bosnian illegal (Diane Kruger), recognized immediately by us as Ms. Right (as opposed to Mrs. Wrong, his wife), who aids & abets right to the final conference, a ubiquitous massive explosion, and - all's well that ends.  Well?   By that time, you're not really interested enough to wait for the final clincher since it, among all the other "suspenseful" cliff hangers, has been spelled out earlier.

Oliver Butcher & Stephen Cornwell have lifted this familiar script from Didier van Cauwelaert's novel "Out of My Head."  (With modern embellishing. Did they really need the learned professor's saying, "I didn't forget everything; I remember how to kill you, a**-hole."?)  Neeson redeems the material with a kind of slow-burn sincerity, despite the feeble aid of director Jaume Collet-Serra and his well worn bag of well worn tricks.  Cinematographer Flavio Labiano, opting for the modern cinematic device of shaky hand-held camera, shooting entirely in bleak, wintry available light, does give us a feel for a city resurrected from steel and glass while giving us brief glimpses of familiar landmarks (like the Brandenburg Gate) to heighten the cinema vérité effect.

The film does move rapidly from suspenseful (?) scene to suspenseful (?) scene, in an attempt to arouse some feeling of excitement or anxious uncertainty about the outcome.  In the right hands, it could promise just that without us ever having to suspend belief for the ridiculous car chases, the way in which people survive or die by the hand of the scriptwriters, etc.  "Memento" and "Bourne" managed to make it believable; this didn't.  Missing -  a 110-minutes of imagination, innovation, freshness, and, especially, distinctiveness.  (Grade: C+)