'Unknown'review: Liam Neeson brings gravitas to pulpy Alfred Hithcock-style action thriller

WithLiam Neeson,January Jones,Aidan Quinn. A man wakes after a coma and believes his identity has been stolen. Director:Jaume Collet-Serra(1:46). PG-13: Violence. At area theaters.

"Going insane,"says Liam Neeson in the new thriller"Unknown,""is a war between being told who you are and knowing who you are."

This twisty, engaging thriller is an example of the last part of that quote. Neeson, often chided for cashing easy action-flick paychecks at the expense of his serious-actor cred, knows who he is— an action star of a certain age who brings gravitas to pulpy stuff.

And if that's who he is, he could do worse than"Unknown."

Neeson playsMartin Harris, an American biophysicist arriving inBerlinwith his wife, Elizabeth ("Mad Men's"January Jones) for a conference that will announce a scientific breakthrough. After dropping his wife off at their hotel, however, Harris is in a car accident that leaves him in a coma for four days. Upon awaking, he discovers he isn't merely without a passport and a place to stay— he in fact has no wife, no friends, no identity at all.

When he gets to the conference, he finds another man (Aidan Quinn) calling himself"Martin Harris."Harris turns to Gina (Diane Kruger), the cab driver involved in his crash, for help, and hires an investigator named Jurgen (Bruno Ganz) to find out why no one remembers who he is.

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra from the German genre novel"Out of My Head,""Unknown"is being sold like"Taken,"Neeson's 2008 hit, but it's filled with more Hitchcockian fun and gets surprising mileage from of its"Twilight Zone"-ish conceit. Everyone who glances at Martin on the Berlin subway seems in on a conspiracy. The"other Dr. Harris"knows the same people and information as he does, and everyone seems estranged from their true identities: Gina the cab driver is a Bosnian illegal, her boss rails against immigrants to Berlin and Jurgen is a former Stasi officer whose home is filled with testaments to his life as a secret policeman.

If the final resolution seems a little easy, the movie constantly keeps you puzzled, and it has a sharp supporting cast: Jones' sexy ice princess is dead-on, Ganz's decaying investigator is a delight,Frank Langellaturns up for an oily little turn, and Quinn is a witty choice to"replace"Neeson, who it turns out had a bit of a career plan after all. As long as he stays away from easy targets like"The A-Team"and fills his middle age with things like this, writing"Liam Neeson"on those paychecks may not be so bad.

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