Unknown (2011)

[randy_byers]

A pretty good thriller, really, at least if you can accept a great deal of absurdity in the name of excitement. "A man awakens from a coma, only to discover that someone has taken on his identity and that no one, (not even his wife), believes him. With the help of a young woman, he sets out to prove who he is." I love identity mysteries, and while I don't suppose this one breaks any new ground, it plows old ground entertainingly. It looks good, it has fights, chases, and explosions, and the misdirections worked on me, leading to a satisfactory (if absurd) conclusion. What more can you ask for on a blustery winter Sunday afternoon?

Okay, I really don't have much to say about this movie. However, looking at the IMDB page, I'm amused by the list of countries behind the production: UK, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, USA. The film is set in Berlin and uses a number of German actors, including Bruno Ganz. It's an international thriller in the mold of the James Bond movies, but now it's not just the locations that are global but the production money and audience. Blockbusters make the bulk of their money outside the US these days (c.f. The Green Hornet, which is raking it in in Asia), so I guess it only makes sense that the investment money comes from outside the US as well. What's fascinating to me is how this reality is affecting the stories, so that here we have a German scientist teaming with an Arab prince to bring a new biotechnology to the masses, with American assassins as the bad guys and a Bosnian refugee (who has an African pal) as the love interest. The first time I was struck by this globalization of Hollywood was with the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, where the pirates were pretty explicitly associated with Third World terrorists who were up against the Empire. Those Pirates movies made a ton of money overseas. Money talks, and nationalism walks.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

"a satisfactory (if absurd) conclusion." A paradox. I normally find those two conditions to be mutually exclusive. Could you explain further without spoilers? I love deeply mysterious setups such as this movie has, but only if they come to conclusions which are satisfactory and not absurd. (What I particularly dislike are answers that I either didn't think of, or thought of and rejected, because they're absurd.)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I can't really answer the question without spoilers, but what I can say is that what I considered absurd about the ending was the romanticism, not the the way the dots are connected. As a puzzle movie, I found it entirely satisfactory.