Rating of
2/4
Only knows how to work 50% of the time
goodfellamike - wrote on 10/26/08
Unknown is the latest thriller that uses the old-hat premise of a group of strangers learning to trust each other, even though they know there is a traitor among them. It’s a clever, maneuvered psychological story that succeeds quite effectively until about the midway point.
Five men wake up in a disheveled warehouse; one is hand-cuffed to a railing, one is tied to a chair, one appears to be dead, and the other two stumble around incoherent and confused. The men figure out they have been unconscious for a long period of time, and in their slumber have been breathing in a chemical agent that has caused temporary amnesia. They immediately realize things are not right in this scenario, since not all of them are restrained, and deduce that at least one of them is a villain. It’s difficult to trust a stranger in this predicament, but since none of them know themselves who the bad guy is, they at least have something in common: their all trapped. Early on, one of the men answers a phone call and garners some crucial information. The man on the other end of the call informs him that “the plan is almost carried out“, and that he “will arrive shortly to take care of the problem.” It’s a vague conversation, but nonetheless an instrument of worry and time is now racing against them all.
Unknown has a gallery of reliable actors in its cast: leading the pack is mild-mannered Jim Caviezel, who must harness both compassion and vigilance as the man who is holding the only gun amongst them all; Greg Kinnear (atypically brazen and vulgar) is a man with a short fuse and a broken nose; Barry Pepper is both a man of reason and a man of gullibility; Jeremy Sisto is a quiet, crafty guy with a bullet hole draining his life away; Joe Pantoliano is the shifty, suspicious guy tied to the chair. The rest of the cast consists of Bridget Moynahan (The Recruit), Peter Stormare (Fargo), Chris Mulkey (Radio) and Mark Boone Junior (Memento).
The first half of Unknown works surprisingly well, giving us an intriguing set-up with characters that are functioning under the basest of instincts. It’s overall premise is a comparative combination of Reservoir Dogs (several guys holed up in a warehouse trying to smoke out the snitch among them) and Saw (strangers who wake up trapped in a room they can’t escape); unfortunately, the screenplay gets the better of everyone once the amnesia starts to wear off. From therein, we’re treated to flashback sequences that explain too much information about each character, too early in the scenario, followed by twists and turns that don’t feel genuine (the most unforgivable occurring in the final minute of the film.) It would have been much more absorbing to witness what develops without knowing which character or characters were villains and which ones weren’t. Once I knew, there wasn’t much else going for it save for the tedious thriller trappings which I’m beginning to believe are inevitable these days.
It’s hard not to find fault in a thriller that feels so arbitrated from the writer’s stand-point. The characters didn‘t surprise me very much, nor did they interest me once their good/evil personas were revealed. Many times in the final half of the film, I felt that situations occurred only to satisfy viewers looking for familiarity in their thrillers (the gunfights, the double-crosses, the twist ending, etc.) rather than engaging my time as believable people.
Unknown starts strong, but it caves in to the routine. Final Grade: C+
