This movie has been in my TBW (to be watched) pile for quite some time now but I haven’t really gotten around to watching it until today. What seemed like Taken 2.0 in the beginning turned out to be a  mile a minute thrill ride featuring a conspiracy that crosses continents and is nothing less than one would expect from the actor who played Bryan Mills, Qui Gon Jin and Zeus himself — Liam Neeson.

Dr. Martin Harris (Neeson) arrives in Berlin with his wife Liz (January Jones) for the first time to speak before a biotechnology conference sponsored by Saudi Prince Shada. After they arrive at the hotel, he realizes that he left his briefcase, which contains his passport and other documents at the airport so he rushes to retrieve it. Unfortunately, he gets into a car accident and wakes up at a hospital without any idea of what happened. When he begins to remember who he is, he finds his wife together with a man (Aidan Quinn) who is claiming to be the true Martin Harris. With the help of the taxi driver who saved his life (Diane Kruger), he tries to piece together the mystery behind the curious incident as the people he begins to meet along the way are picked off one by one by hired assassins.

Unknown was great in the sense that it had a great plot to begin with, although it was a bit reminiscent of The Net (Sandra Bullock) involving identity theft, with some elements of Mission Impossible with the imminent threat against the lead characters. But it was still original in its pacing and presentation, helped along by the setting (Berlin), which gave the movie a unique feel because it was in Europe.

There was great action throughout the movie and cool car chases that involved a lot of high end European taxis (Mercedes, I think) and several assassins that were surprisingly bested by a scientist (Neeson) and an illegal immigrant (Kruger). At some point of the movie, I was beginning to ask myself how they were able to manage evading the hit squad by just their wits, and excellent driving skills (Neeson was driving like Statham in The Transporter) but this issue was cleared towards the end of the movie.

Unknown may be a little less cool than Taken (which I believe is Neeson’s best movie) but it was great nonetheless. I could just kick myself for waiting so long to see but now that I have, I am glad to give it my seal of approval.