Unknown

While undeniably containing many similarities to Saw II and Reservoir Dogs, Unknown boasts a unique (if contrived) central idea that lacks the necessary anchoring in reality to make it believable. Five men, all of them battered to some degree, awake in an abandoned mine (or refinery) with no memory of who they are or how they got there. As the story unfolds, they discover that two of them are hostages, which means the other three are bad guys. Even worse, the bad guys' accomplices are returning from collecting the ransom money to put a hole in the hostage's heads.

It's an intriguing premise, and writer Matthew Waynee touches all bases while not quite managing to exploit the opportunity for suspense inherent in the plot. Despite its short length (85 minutes), the time doesn't pass that quickly, even though the film is never boring. Everyone is understandably stressed and shouts a lot and they're all generally unpleasant to one another, so we don't develop any particular attachment to their characters. Given this, and the fact that there are some glaring plot holes (these guys don't have wallets?) the film falls short of its potential by some distance.

The cast is surprisingly good for what looks like a low budget effort, and they all perform well, and the story will keep you watching to the end to find out just who is who but, ultimately, Waynee adds just one unnecessary twist too many, leaving the suspicion that he wants to show us how clever he is as much as he wants to tell us a story.

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.

"Unknown" is the type of film that looks brilliant before, during and even shortly after watching it. The names of the actors appearing during the opening credits are fantastic, the basic premise sounds awesome and instantly reminds you of a handful of other cinema classics, there's an almost constant high level of action & mystery and the director maintains a fast pacing and regularly provides new plot twists! This film actually contains all the aspects you hope to see on a big cinema screen, and it isn't until quite a while after finishing "Unknown" before its flaws and shortcomings come to the surface. It sounds rather strange, but by now – only a couple days after my viewing – I can't even remember that many things about "Unknown" that were really original and/or genuinely impressive. In spite of delivering constant thrills and mystery, the only thing I can think of now is how simplistic the story really is and how the script actually reverts to such easy excuses to explain the oddities. If you're planning on seeing "Unknown", I strongly advise to enjoy the wild ride while it lasts and immediately put your mind to other things when the film is over, because if you contemplate too much about what you saw, there's a large chance your opinion will change as well. The film already often gets compared to "Reservoir Dogs" and it's fairly easy to see why. Five rather sinister men are gathered in a secluded desert hangar and it's more than likely that they're all involved in some kind of criminal affair. Slight problem, though ... they suffer from mass-amnesia following an incident or violent struggle and none of them knows whether he is a good guy or a bad guy. One of them is tied down to a chair, one is handcuffed and slowly dying from a gunshot wound, one guy's nose is broken and the last remaining two men are desperately trying to figure out what connects them. As the day passes by, brief flashback and awkward phone calls reveal that the men are involved in a kidnapping and that they are waiting for other accomplices to return to the hangar. But, which of them are kidnappers and which of them are hostages? And, even more importantly, what caused their temporary loss of memory? The amnesia-aspect of the plot is intriguing at first, but it becomes less plausible and definitely sillier as the film evolves. It's a little too hard to believe that the characters don't remember anything about their unusual situation and when the cause of the amnesia is finally revealed, it only comes across as a mildly acceptable excuse. Thanks to the minimum amount of filming locations, "Unknown" does feature quite a bit of suspense and an occasionally claustrophobic atmosphere. The screenplay suffers from the 'one twist too many' syndrome at the end, like so many wannabe intellectual psychological thrillers nowadays, but the writing skills of newcomer Matthew Waynee are definitely promising and hopeful for the future of the genre. The multi-talented cast provides this film with a bigger status than it actually deserves, but they all play their roles with great devotion. Jeremy Sisto's role ("Six Feet Under", "May", Wrong Turn") is sadly the smallest and it hurts to realize he'll probably always remain underrated. Greg Kinnear, Barry Pepper and Jim Caviezel are good in their rather unconventional roles, while Peter Stormare steals the show as the maniacal gangster.

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

A group of strangers waked up in the middle of no where.With no name,no identity and no memories.The awkward situation pushed them into a kind of bizarre symbiosis.They have to work together to figure out a way to escape and improvise their next move based on their limited recurrent memories.Sounds like a unique and mind-blowing set-up,but the flick never really reached its expectation.

Matthew Waynee did put some surprising twist at the end of the movie,but since some of the characters are not built-up through the whole movie.I didn't pick up any crumbs along the journey,if there is any.In the end the identity revealing session is just like a teacher's roll calling.You,you,and you should play the bad guys.And nobody should break the rules,my stick would see to it.