I guess the best way to summarize this film is they took 4 great films and tried to spawn their own film from it. On the surface it would work if you have only seen one of the following four films: SAW, RESERVOIR DOGS, THE USUAL SUSPECTS, or CUBE. But if you have seen more than one of those you will probably immediately be saying to yourself, I have seen this film before and recently. The cast is great but the acting is just marginal. The plot twists aren't overly annoying but you damn well know they are coming. It's that kind of movie, written at a time when "plot twists" were the cool hip thing in Hollywood. Do yourself a favor and skip this one and watch any of the four mentioned above that you have not seen. If you have seen those four, skip this one anyways.

After familiarizing myself with the plot summary, I decided to watch the movie to find out how much the idea known from Reservoir Dogs or Saw was going to be exploited... Luckily, the actors are good (especially Greg Kinnear and Peter Stormare) and a parallel chase is depicted. However, the flashbacks are often too fast, but the scenes get sometimes too slow.The plot is still OK, tensions are there and viewers are left unknown for a long time. It is probably more interesting to watch it in the male company, as female characters are present less than 10% of the total length - which is fortunately not big (1h 15 min.). The ending is awkward, but probably it is found great by many viewers.

A group of men wake up in an industrial facility of some sort. They are locked in and none of them can remember who they are or why they are there. One is handcuffed to a railing and bleeding from a gunshot wound. Another is tied to a chair. A third has been hit in the face with a shovel. As this group try to figure out who they are, why they are there, and how to get out we also see a police operation to do with a ransom drop.After its mysterious start, this turns into a relatively routine suspense thriller with a twist. There is a good cast - Jim Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Barry Pepper, Joe Pantoliano - but two big things work against the film.One is that despite its meagre running length - a short 82 minutes - it takes far too long to get going. Having made its point (these men don't remember anything) it takes forever to actually do anything with the setup. And the second is that the script is not much cop. Far too much of it is simply people shouting at each other - there is no subtlety.

5 guys wake up in an abandoned warehouse, sick and with no memory of how they got there, who they are and even why they are there. With time running out, who can they trust and how can they work together to find a way out. I like a good mystery film. Something that makes you think, or try to figure bits and pieces out before the ending comes. Unknown came off to me as that type of flick. A bunch of people wake up not knowing who they are, where they are or who to trust? Count me in. For the most part, the film did what I hoped it would. It gave me a problem that I had to solve, a problem that the characters themselves had to solve. It also had a pretty good cast, I knew everyone in it and I actually like the people in it too. Then as the film began to come to it's final conclusion, it became full of too many twists and turns that it lost it's own footing. You know those films that should have ended, but then for the sake of it, throw one last twist in there. Unknown is that type of film. I could have been happy with the film ending the way it was going, then it just had to throw one more twist in, in case people thought they had it all figure out. I would have preferred a more depressing ending myself, but instead we get a mildly happy one. James Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Joe Pantoliano, Barry Pepper, and Jeremy Sisto star as the people in the warehouse trying to find a way out. Other stars such as Peter Stormare and Bridget Moynahan are doing things outside of this place. Piece by piece, more information is revealed to us so we get to see the bigger picture. Nolan does a great job of this in his films. The big picture in unknown, is not that big. Instead it's pretty boring. We eventually find out that two of them are being kidnapped and held for ransom, the other three are the kidnappers. But who is who? Joe Pantoliano is tied to a chair for most of the movie and Jeremy Sisto is handcuffed the entire time. The man has little screen time and the little bit he does get, is him sitting, handcuffed to a railing. The pieces to the puzzle, some are interesting, some aren't. The big picture isn't as good as one would hope. Unknown is something that I would recommend renting, not a purchase type of film.