Unknown

Movies
1

Interesting premise that goes just about nowhere. Reviewers have called it “twisty”. It isn’t remotely “twisty”. It’s just a slow reveal. I would call the ‘surprise’ ending a ‘twist’ so much as an “F U Ending.”

I think the only thing worth noting is that Greg Kinnear plays a convincing asshole. Joey Pants does what he does, but not very much of it. Caviezel is pretty boring. Barry Pepper was ok.

And enough already with Peter Stormare as generic lead gangster villain. Someone, anyone, give him a hero role. I like him but they’ve got him stuffed so far down into the villain typecast he’ll never get out.

2

I’ve just seen this film and I’d agree that it’s a disappointing film and makes several mistakes:

  1. It reveals who everyone is and why they’re there way too fast.

  2. It does what SAW did and spends half its time outside its interesting premise following events that aren’t as interesting and that you don’t need to follow anyway.

  3. The ‘twist’ is pretty irrelevant.

A nice to have seen but I wouldn’t bother again.

To me, Phone Booth is an example of a film which got this concept right, while SAW and Unknown miss the point.