Unknown 2011

The title of the film is: Unknown
Date: 2011
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Writers: Oliver Butcher
Stars: Liam Neelson, Diane Kruger, January Jones

Liam Neelson plays the main role under the name Martin Harris.
Diane Kruger plays the role of Gina.
January Jones plays the role of Martins wife Elizabeth Harris.

The film is about a man who wakes up from a coma after having a car accident in a taxi. He finds out someone stole his identity and not even his wife seems to recognise him. He goes on a mission to expose the imposter and prove he is the real Martin Harris. Gina the taxi driver that caused the accident, helps him throughout the film. It seems that there is something bigger going on and people are out to stop Martin from finding out what exactly is happening.

In an interview Liam Neelson said he enjoys the film, because it seems to go back to the noir films and it reminds him of Hitchcocks work.

Key scenes of tension:

The Flat Scene 

The flat scene has built up tension, by showing the villains rush into the flat and attack Gina as Martin Harris is taking a shower. This made me feel as if the director tried to show that Martin is in a vulnerable position. The fact fact that at first he is oblivious to the men outside the bathroom, due to the sound of the water running and also the fact that he does not have his clothes on (again showing he is vulnerable), causes us to wonder how will he escape and if he will react fast enough before the men reach him.

The music matches the action happening on screen, manipulating our emotion to make the whole scene more effective. The fast editing leading up to action, keeps the audience focused because we feel like we have to pay attention or we will miss something. This is due to the fact that the average shots during an action sequence last from 1-2 seconds.

The club scene

The club scene is effective, due to the way in which it builds up tension throughout. We are aware of the fact that someone is coming after Martin Harris and now Gina is a target as well because she got involved and tried to help him. The fact that they are now hiding in a crowded, dark place with loud music blasting. This proves to be effective because they are in danger and the viewers by this point have developed empathy for the main characters, which means the audience feels unsafe. We are thrown off guard, when they enter the club because the music prevents us from hearing any other crucial things that could be happening around us. They would not be able to hear the villains voices or their footsteps.

Hospital Scene
In this scene a guy that we have previously seen chasing Martin, trys to kill him by tying him to a hospital bed and injecting some sort of poison into his drip so that he can escape before the poison enters his blood. When a nurse comes into the room she is attacked by the man and he breaks her neck. She drops dead on the floor next to Martin. When the man leaves the room for a few minutes convinced that Martin is already passed out, Martin Harris is presented as a "resourceful hero" because he reaches for the scissors in the nurses pocket that could help him cut the drip off. This creates tension as he is still tied to the bed and so he struggles to reach it and we are sure that he won't make it in time.

For a big portion of the movie we are convinced that the main character is Martin Harris and his identity has been stolen. This is because we have been presented with evidence of this mans identity at the beginning of the film where we see his passport. Later on the audience is in for a surprise when everything we thought was true was all really in Martins head.How is Unknown different from the way traditional thrillers are?

We do not know who the villain and who the hero is from the start. We are hinted at it by various events and we meet the people that work for the villain that is trying to get rid of Martin. In the thriller Rope we are clear from the start that the boys who killed their cousin are the villains while their old teacher is the hero trying to figure out what happened throughout the party.

In Rope we are presented with red herrings but we are faced with dramatic irony, because we know what happened and so we are not fooled by them, however in Unknown, we are faced with events that we are not aware are red herrings so at the end of the movie we are surprised with the turn of the events. The characters in the movie and the audience are both convinced for a part of the movie that there will be an attempted terrorist attack on the prince, but it turns out that they were trying to get the guy who invented the corn.

(created with wordle)