13 Brilliant Plot Twists That Couldn't Quite Save Terrible Movies
5. Unknown - Liam Neeson Is A Hitman Who Got Amnesia On A Mission
The Twist: After suffering a car crash before attending a biotech summit, Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) wakes up to find that his life has been taken over by another man (Aidan Quinn). His wife, Liz (January Jones) claims not to recognize him and the other Martin has now replaced him in all of their family pictures.
After nearly being assassinated, his mentor Rodney (Frank Langella) reveals to him that he is an assassin and that Martin Harris was a cover identity created for this mission. After the crash, he accidentally woke up to believe that he was really Harris.
Why It Almost Saved The Movie: It’s fun to think about how Liam Neeson has become a bonafide action star, but you also have to remember that it occasionally means we get generic action bores like Unknown. None of the action or characters pop but surprisingly, the twist actually makes some sense of the ludicrous set-up.
Amnesia is far-fetched at best, but considering the plot of the movie, the twist somehow completely made sense of what was happening. Furthermore, it still provided a way for Neeson to fight the bad guys even though he was technically one of them.