Unknown (2006)

Hindsight is 20/20. I guess by now the filmmakers of 'Unknown' may appreciate that suspense is a far more powerful tool than mystery.Suspense - as defined by Hitchcock is when two guys are at a table having a chat unaware that there's a time bomb under the table that could explode at any moment.The viewer has privileged knowledge while the characters remain ignorant. The more the viewer is invested in the characters, the stronger the suspense. Hitchcock went as far as placing a child in the position of jeopardy but audiences hated him for it and the film suffered at the box office.For most of 'Unknown' we don't know which of the characters are the good guys or the bad guys. So, even though there is impending jeopardy because it's likely that the kidnap victims will be killed, we can't really root for anyone. The viewer is in the dark as much as the characters. The police sequences built around the money drop offer no clues.As the characters await the arrival of the main group of bad guys, they fight and form alliances but the viewer is unable to root or despair over the choices made.The most intense moment in the first hour of the movie happens when they try to get the attention of the kid holding the ball. It's a rare moment of real suspense.

Before watching this movie I read all the reviews talking about a twist ending, thinking to myself, "Yeah sure, I bet I'll figure it out with half an hour to spare." Well, I'm pleased to admit I didn't. I thought I did, but at the last minute they pulled the rug out from under me and hit me with a totally unexpected yet 100% believable ending. It's very rare that a film can accomplish that, the only other crime thrillers I can remember fooling me so well are "The Usual Suspects", "No Way Out", and maybe "Suicide Kings".The plot of "Unknown" is simple. Five men wake up in a locked warehouse, each with memory loss. From the clues evident at the scene they realize that something very bad happened, and some of them are "good guys" while the others are "bad guys". But nobody knows anything about anyone or even themselves.What follows is an excellent study of human nature: paranoia, selfishness, goodness, evil and most of all: what determines who we are? Are we born a certain way and fated to always behave that way, or is it our circumstances that determines our actions in life? In "Unknown", we know that some of them are ruthless criminals and we also know that some of them are innocent victims. The question at the heart of this movie is, if you erase the memory of a criminal, will he eventually go back to being a criminal? Or, without memory of the things that turned him rotten, would his good nature assert itself? If you pay close attention to the characters & how they behave, then compare that to who they really turn out to be, then you'll get the message the filmmakers are conveying. Great mood, excellent acting and suspenseful cinematography round out this intense psychological study.And did I mention what a great twist ending it has? It's not a cheap twist merely for the sake of surprising us, but rather it leaves us with a whole world of thoughts to keep us busy as the credits roll and thereafter. Definitely I'll be watching this a 2nd time, this time knowing who's who, and I bet it'll be even more fun than the 1st.I highly recommend this film to fans of the movies I mentioned: "The Usual Suspects" and "Suicide Kings" in particular (especially for fans of Jeremy Sisto who was in SK). I'd also add to the list "Reservoir Dogs" and this may be a stretch, but maybe the classic "12 Angry Men" because it has the same minimalist setting (12 jurors confined to deliberating the outcome of a murder trial) in its study of human nature under stress.

Unknown plays more like a psychological thriller rather than a plain old thriller, as it follows around five men who awaken in an abandoned warehouse with no recollection of their name or previous events. It isn't before long that they find that three of the five men are free, while the other two are tied up. This could possibly mean that the three are the kidnappers and the other two, the hostages.There are a grand amount of twist and turns, so many, that I will not bother to try and decipher things. Not only are we following the guys in the warehouse, but we're also trying to keep up with the band of robbers who are apparently tied in with the five in the warehouse. The five guys in the warehouse don't have names, though. The credits of the film refer to them by their appearance. Jim Caviezel, easily my favorite character of the film, is "Jean Jacket," while Greg Kinnear is "Broken Nose." Just like many thrillers, you may have to suspend disbelief. Apparently, how these men lost their memories is because a gas leak was going on for several days, wiping them clean. So, the gas can wipe their memories, but when breathed for two days straight can't kill them? No problem. I've dealt with stranger circumstances with that. Physics in Transformers: Dark of the Moon for example.Performance-wise, the film is stable. It's not easy to pull off the "I don't know because I just don't know" act, but all five of the men are capable and shy away from overacting. The film also gets strong points for the editing and setting, which are creepy and involved, yet still feels a tad unexplored. It's too bad we didn't spend the remainder of the film in the warehouse, rather than both the outside and the warehouse. Setting it up in that location would've been wholly effective and the building blocks for a wonderful claustrophobic thriller.Unknown is sufficient entertainment. It isn't the edge of your seat type or the play with your mind type thriller, but the somewhat preposterous but ultimately rewarding kind of thriller. For me, that's more than enough. I too, can't imagine what the auditions were like when Jim Caviezel tried out. "What has this guy done in the past?" "He played Jesus." "Sign him up." Starring: Jim Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Bridget Moynahan, Joe Pantoliano, Barry Pepper, and Jeremy Sisto. Directed by: Simon Brand.

5 guys wake up in an abandoned warehouse, sick and with no memory of how they got there, who they are and even why they are there. With time running out, who can they trust and how can they work together to find a way out. I like a good mystery film. Something that makes you think, or try to figure bits and pieces out before the ending comes. Unknown came off to me as that type of flick. A bunch of people wake up not knowing who they are, where they are or who to trust? Count me in. For the most part, the film did what I hoped it would. It gave me a problem that I had to solve, a problem that the characters themselves had to solve. It also had a pretty good cast, I knew everyone in it and I actually like the people in it too. Then as the film began to come to it's final conclusion, it became full of too many twists and turns that it lost it's own footing. You know those films that should have ended, but then for the sake of it, throw one last twist in there. Unknown is that type of film. I could have been happy with the film ending the way it was going, then it just had to throw one more twist in, in case people thought they had it all figure out. I would have preferred a more depressing ending myself, but instead we get a mildly happy one. James Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Joe Pantoliano, Barry Pepper, and Jeremy Sisto star as the people in the warehouse trying to find a way out. Other stars such as Peter Stormare and Bridget Moynahan are doing things outside of this place. Piece by piece, more information is revealed to us so we get to see the bigger picture. Nolan does a great job of this in his films. The big picture in unknown, is not that big. Instead it's pretty boring. We eventually find out that two of them are being kidnapped and held for ransom, the other three are the kidnappers. But who is who? Joe Pantoliano is tied to a chair for most of the movie and Jeremy Sisto is handcuffed the entire time. The man has little screen time and the little bit he does get, is him sitting, handcuffed to a railing. The pieces to the puzzle, some are interesting, some aren't. The big picture isn't as good as one would hope. Unknown is something that I would recommend renting, not a purchase type of film.