(2011) Upon his arrival at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin for a Biotech Global Summit in the latter part of November, Dr Martin Harris (Liam Neeson), realizing that his briefcase containing his passport and other documents had been left behind at the airport, leaves his wife Liz (January Jones) to check in while he returns for it via taxi. Before reaching the terminal, the taxi, involved in an accident, plunges over a bridge into a river; the driver, a female, valiantly rescues Martin from drowning; he's rushed to a hospital.

When he awakes, Martin learns from the doctor that he's been in a coma for four days and has suffered partial amnesia from the trauma. However, he soon discovers that everyone else seems to have trouble recognizing him. Lacking any personal identification, he has difficulty convincing hotel security of his being Dr Martin Harris; worse, his wife of five years denies he's her husband as another Martin (Aidan Quinn) appears at her side.

This violently exciting thriller - murders, mayhem, a wild car chase, crashes, explosions, and a thoroughly astonishing conclusion - directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, from a screenplay by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell, adapting Didier Van Cauwelaert's novel, Out of My Head, is largely preposterous, yet will bring to mind another lost identity.

A progressive Saudi, who has previously been the target of an assassination attempt, Prince Shada, is sponsoring the summit; the featured speaker, Prof Bressler (Sebastian Koch), has developed a revolutionary agricultural hybrid worth billions of dollars. Confused and uncertain of himself - an Internet search of the Langmore University website displays a photo of the other Dr Harris - desperate, Martin makes a phone call to his friend Rodney Cole (Frank Langella), leaving an incoherent voice message on Thanksgiving Day of his crisis.

Inexplicably he finds he's being pursued. Back at the hospital, a sympathetic nurse offers him a business card of Ernst Jürgen (Bruno Ganz) to assist in finding clues toward recovering his identity. Formerly with the Stasi, Jürgen after listening to Martin's story ("We all forget," says the one-time spy: "We forgot the Nazis, and now we're forgetting 40 years of communism"), which includes two fatalities, recommends that he find the cab driver to establish what happened prior to the accident.

Martin tracks her down where she's working as a waitress, having lost her job driving a taxi; Gina (Diane Kruger) is an illegal emigrant in Germany from Bosnia. In exchange for a valuable wristwatch, she agrees to let him spend the night in her flat. A man who had tried to kill Martin earlier, along with an accomplice, forces his way into the apartment, beginning a sequence of harrowing events that bond Gina to Martin.

A few hints, such as his quick reflexes and skillful handling of a car during the chase, suggest that Martin isn't an ordinary professor, nor is Cole just a good friend willing to travel to Berlin on a holiday to help Martin.

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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