Unknown (2006) Reviews

• unknown and unexpected

  misaacmom2006-11-06

  I usually am disappointed in psychological thrillers - typically the twist at the end never lives up to the hype. It was a wonderful surprise that this one failed to let me down at the end. Although the film is slow at times, there are numerous twists and turns so you don't have to wait until the end for all of the excitement. Unknown is a great movie that keeps the viewer trying to stay one step ahead through the collective confusion. Caviezel and Peppers gave strong and engaging performances. Kinnear skillfully draws both dislike and sympathy. Stormare is a great character actor and perfectly cast for the role. I agree with other viewers the lighting was dim and depressing but I would give a good guess that this was intentional. Certainly the movie would not have "felt" the same otherwise.

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• A real beauty! ...much better than expected.

  FloX-22007-02-10

  I saw "UNKNOWN" yesterday in a midnight special screening and it was surprisingly good! In deed, this one is a real beauty among so many mystery, psychological thrillers hitting the cinemas in the last years. This movie is a little bit of "SAW", a little bit of "IDENTITY", a little bit of "RESERVOIR DOGS" spiced with some tiny little pieces of "CUBE" - so far, so good and so anticipating. BUT: in many movies of this kind there is a story with some huge holes in the plot and a final twist at the end which may be unexpected and surprising - but after some minutes you feel a little bit strange about it because the final twist being of some strange coincidence. "UNKNOWN" is better: the only coincidence you will have to swallow is right in the beginning of the movie, that there is a chemical gas which is strong enough to wipe out the complete memory of five people (including their whole identity!) for some hours, but fails to kill one of them although "death" being one of its side effects. Under this premise the rest of the story is fully logical and surprisingly clever. And it makes the best out of the fact, that in many scenes the audience is better informed about the real identity of the characters than the characters themselves. And the end is just stunning: when the final credits hit the screen you have seen many final twists and you know everything about what was going on in the chemical factory, but you do not know all about the motive force of any character. In fact, 24 hours after seeing this movie I still try to find out what is my personal opinion about Jean Jacket and his role in this game. ...and a movie which is worth to think about more than 10 minutes is always worth a watch. Enjoy this ride!!!

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• Who Is Who?

  claudio_carvalho2007-10-09

  Five men wake-up in a chemical warehouse without memories. One man is handcuffed and bleeding with a shot on the chest; the other one is tied-up to a chair; the other one has the nose broken; and the other two are lying on the floor. They unravel that two of them have been kidnapped and the other three are bad guys, bur who is who? Meanwhile, the police force try to track the criminals that will catch the ransom and find where their hideout is. "Unknown" is a surprisingly good thriller, with a dramatic and suspenseful story that uses elements of "Cube", "Memento", film-noir genre and many other movies ("Saw", "Reservoir Dogs" among others). The explanation for the lack of memory of the men is very reasonable, the acting is excellent and the final twist is totally unexpected. The character played by Jim Caviezel is very interesting and complex. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "Os Desconhecidos" ("The Unknown")

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• This movie should be Well Known

  dfranzen702007-05-14

  A man wakes up in an abandoned warehouse. Groggily getting to his feet, he sees several other men, some laying prone, one hanging from handcuffs, one tied to a chair. The man has no recollection of who he is, how he got there, who the other men are, nothing. No recollection other than that he just woke up. Unknown is a solid, twisty caper/thriller, about a kidnapping that somehow goes wrong; we pick up the action the same time that our protagonist (or is he?) does, so we have to piece things together with him. And, as it turns out, with the others in the warehouse, each of whom has suffered short-term memory loss. Who is "good," who is "bad," and where the heck are they? The man can't get out of the warehouse (there are bars on the windows, and the only door to the outside is electronically controlled), and they have limited means with which to defend themselves. But what if some of them are the ones against whom they should be defending? What then? One thing I liked about this movie, above all else, really, was that whatever did happen, it was neither blindly predictable nor completely implausible. No one trusts anyone, really, but no one completely mistrusts others, either. Helping matters is the wonderful, flawless cast, including Jim Caviezel (as the initial waker-upper), Barry Pepper, Greg Kinnear, Joe Pantoliano, Jeremy Sisto, Chris Mulkey, and Peter Stormare. Everyone is dead on; there are no hams this time around. Everything just plain feels right, and what's more, not one character is Good or Bad. Sure, you wake up with Jim Caviezel, and you get the idea he's Good, but he doesn't always act Good. If that makes sense. See, at no point did I feel I comfortably knew what the hey hey was going on. There were feints and double crosses, but not so haphazardly that they lose meaning. We've all seen movies like that, movies that are completely wrapped up in being clever and self-important, so they managed to write themselves into a corner and therefore make no freaking sense. Unknown makes sense all along but still surprises, and that's saying something. A lot better than you might imagine it being, based on its title.

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• Saw with a hint of usual suspects and a dash of Reservoir dogs

  Johnny102006-11-04

  This movie is engaging in the first twenty or so minutes, with a good cast including famous celebrities (Greg Kinnear, Barry Pepper, James Caviesel) and some appearances from indie stars (Peter Stormare, Joe Pantilona, Jeremy Sisto, and Marke Boone Junior). The acting is pretty good and the camera work is OK as is the story, with enough twists and turns to probably entertain most viewers for the running time. It's not a bad movie but not a great one either, with it's story there is no moral to be learned and that's fine but i wish the director gave the movie more style since it's not a heavy drama, the camera wasn't very flashy almost bland and the scenes outside of the warehouse were poorly done. If only the movie took place all inside that warehouse and the if the director didn't try to make it so straight forward. overall i give this a B-, it's worth seeing but don't make a huge effort. Also don't listen to the ads saying that this has the same story style as Memento, because it doesn't. Rating: the film when i watched it was not rated, the movie contains many F words although not extreme, and the violence in this movie is toned down, yes there's some but not too bad. saw it on Demand in IFC in Theatres

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