

by Rick Grant
This is an example of a movie that borrows heavily from other action thrillers like Taken and even going back to The French Connection. However, Liam Neeson’s intense acting upgrades the scenario considerably. In other words, director Juame Collet-Serra’s scenario is derivative yet exciting with Neeson’s strong characterization.
The convoluted story is not easy to figure out, but there are tells throughout the progression of the film. The movie begins when noted biologist, Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife Elizabeth (January Jones) arrive in Berlin for a conference on advances in bio-engineered food products that could save the world from hunger.
Harris forgets his briefcase at the airport. He leaves his wife at the hotel and returns by Taxi to retrieve it. In a horrendous crash, the car is propelled into the river, but paramedics get his heart pumping again. But Harris slips into a coma.
When Harris awakens, four days later, he wonders where his wife is, and has serious memory lapses. After he is released form the hospital, he goes back to the hotel to find his wife, who is suddenly with another man and doesn’t know him. Harris insists he is her husband but she states, unambiguously, that she doesn’t know him. Hotel security kicks him out and he wanders the streets of Berlin trying to fathom what’s happening to him. He locates Gina (Diane Kruger), the cab driver from the accident.
Like in Three Days of The Condor, Harris is running from assassins with a strange woman. Harris is befuddled by his faulty memory and why his loving wife has rejected him. More significantly, he has been replaced by an imposter who carries photos of him and Elizabeth in which Harris used to appear. It’s like he’s been deleted from her life.
As Harris and Gina race around Berlin in a stolen taxi, avoiding the assassins, viewers are riveted, trying to figure out what is the exact nature of this conspiracy. The script is clever enough to keep the secret until the end of the film. But veteran thriller viewers will figure it out from the subtle tells as the film rolls.
All the action and car chases are leading up to that biotech conference. Harris remembers something ominous is going to happen, but he can’t remember the details. All the loose ends are tied up at the end, and no one leaves the theatre wondering what happened.
Overall, it’s an exciting movie with plenty of action and mystery, well worth seeing.
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