Blackout

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.

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.

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.

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