It opens up with a man and his wife on a plane which is about to land in Berlin. There for a conference, the camera wonderfully captures the city as they make their way to the hotel by taxi, and we in the audience think this may end up being a halfway decent film. Then the plot becomes set in motion and you realize that this is going to be one of those silly films where little makes sense. Upon arrival at the hotel, the man realizes he forgot an item at the hotel. He jumps in another cab and hightails it back to the airport, yet along the way he is involved in an accident which sends the cab in a river and causes him to go into a coma after being rescued. When he comes to a few days later, no one, not even his wife, seems to remember who he is. The movie plods on from there with poor dialogue until it arrives at one of those giant inane plot twists which the studios and audiences have inexplicably grown so fond of. This all leads to a violent, pointless ending which contains one of the worst (or funniest) finishing lines I can remember. The film is not entirely without merit. The look of the movie is crisp and clean and some of the action scenes are handled moderately well. Liam Neeson is always affable though when did he decide to become an action star. Also fine performers like Frank Langella and especially the German veteran actor Bruno Ganz keep the ship from sinking. The first few months of the year are known for the time when Hollywood unloads its stinkers on the public. You would think that good fare at the box office would be a call to get out of the cold weather. Still with the junk released lately, I think I just may go into multiplex hibernation.
