Water contains a miraculous ingredient when it comes to assassins. A good dunking in the ocean (The Bourne Identity, 2002) or a river (here) and suddenly a) they suffer memory black-out and b) they refute their apparent careers as assassins and show such remorse they turn against their employers.
Businessman Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and wife Liz (January Jones) arrive in Berlin for a high-tech biotech conference, but he leaves his briefcase behind at the airport and when he goes to collect it ends up in a collision on a bridge, falls into said river (the Spree), rescued by illegal immigrant taxi driver Gina (Diane Kruger). After four days in a coma, suffering from loss of memory as well as, critically, his passport, he is treated as an imposter at the hotel, his wife escorting a different Martin Harris (Aidan Quinn).
Pursued by killer Smith (Olivier Schneider) and apparent old buddy Rodney Cole (Frank Langella), only gradually, with the help of an initially reluctant Gina and a former Stasi agent Ernst (Bruno Ganz) does he begin to uncover a conspiracy in which he was to play a central role, namely the murder of Professor Bressler (Sebastian Koch) who has developed some genetically modified crop that will solve the problems of famine worldwide and rather than cashing in on his discovery plans to give it away for free. Shades of the current Day of the Jackal in how such generosity of spirit will upset the financial system.
Twists and red herrings abound, not all of them so plausible, but the movie zips along at such a pace and Martin plays such a befuddled angry patient that you are carried along with considerable zest. Expect a couple of car chases, de rigeur for the subgenre, but the identity confusion plays a large part in making this work. Add in a nascent romance between Martin and Gina, and the setting up of a false romance between Martin and Liz and it zings along quite happily.
Some of the set pieces are quite stunning. A refrigerator coming loose on the back of a lorry instigates the dousing in the river, and the rescue is superb. But there’s humanity and character at work, too, excellent scenes with Gina’s boss bemoaning his lack of insurance cover, Gina herself stuck in transient life, the virtual hovels in which transients live, cardboard walls offering no security, and always someone likely to come charging through a door or a window. Ernst is a super creation, another in need of redemption, clutching the few principles he has left.
But if you need a character to reveal depths of anguish who also needs to be fit enough to do a lot of running around then there’s no better actor than Liam Neeson. He’d done plenty of the actorly stuff earlier in his career with a few turns into action (The A-Team, Batman Begins, The Phantom Menace anybody?) that had detracted from his marquee value and he only really became big box office after the unexpected success, when well into his 50s, of Taken (2008).
Diane Kruger had come through the ranks with Troy (2003) and National Treasure (2006) but consistent top billing had evaded her, which is a shame because she can bring considerable depths to a part, as she shows here, and she was easily the best thing about The 355 (2022). She was reunited with Neeson for Marlowe (2022).
Jaume Collet-Serra became the Neeson go-to director, re-teaming with the actor for Non-Stop (2014), Run All Night (2015) and The Commuter (2018) and he’s a past master at juggling all the narrative balls, even if some of them don’t make much sense. The detection element, as Martin tries to discover his identity, the slice-of-Berlin-life, the trapped Gina, and the unfolding chaos all make this play very well and it only falls apart in the last section when we have to accept that he’s Bourne-again and chasing redemption while the time-ticking bomb plot element is so old hat.
Still, one of my favorite action pictures.
The Magnificent 60s 