Unknown (film)

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Unknown
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Simon Brand
Written by	Matthew Waynee
Starring	James Caviezel Greg Kinnear Bridget Moynahan Joe Pantoliano Barry Pepper Jeremy Sisto Peter Stormare
Running time	98 min.
Language	English
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IMDb profile

Unknown is a 2006 movie about a group of men kidnapped and locked in a factory. A chemical accident caused them to lose their memories. Piecing together information around them, they realize that some were kidnapped and some were the kidnappers. They decide they must work together to figure out how to get away before the gang that captured them returns.

The film was previewed before a theater audience for the first time in New York City on December 13, 2005. It was then released straight to DVD in early 2007. It is unrated by MPAA.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens with a man in a jean jacket (Caviezel) waking up in a secure warehouse with barred windows and a high tech locked door with a shovel and a broken cell phone near him. He does not remember anything that has happened or even his own name. He looks around and notices three other men, one face down with a broke nose (Kinnear), another handcuffed and dangling from a bar on the second floor and shot (Sisto), and another man tied up to a chair (Pantoliano). As he scrambles to try to get out of the building and finds a bathroom and washes his face. As he looks in the mirror he remembers men in black masks and carrying a small girl in a hospital. He then walks into another room where there are two chairs, one broken and another with a rope underneath it.

Suddenly a phone rings from another room and answers it. On the other line a man asks if he is talking to a guy named Woz, but the jean jack man says he is in the bathroom. The man on the phone assumes he is talking to a man named Brockman and asks why he's not answering his cell phone. There is a lot of static and noise on the other line so it is unclear whether the man recognizes his voice. The man asks if a guy named Snakeskin left his gun holster there. The man in the jacket looks around and finds it along with a set of car keys. The man on the phone then asks how a man named Coles is. The man in the jean jacket says he is fine and asks when he will get back. The man is unsure and says they will be there in a couple of hours and will call when they're on there way.

Eliza Coles is at a train station with cops all around her dropping off ransom money in a locker, for her husband’s release. She panics and goes to talk to the cops. She eventually puts the money in the locker. The bag of money is bugged just incase the men get it. Eliza goes back and puts the money in the locker and walks away. A janitor walks near the locker and the bugging system turns off. The cops freak out and approach the janitor, but he is an actual worker and the cops realize the locker is rigged to drop the bag to the basement. The cops run into the basement to find the money gone. Another cop bumps into a bunch of construction workers and realizes that one of them is wearing snakeskin boots (Stormare) and is the kidnapper. Knowing what he looks like the cop and another cop take the tracking system (that has started to work again) and try to follow the man.

The man in the jean jacket hears someone screaming and runs back into the room to find that the man tied to the chair has awoken. The man in the jean jacket tries to question him as to what he remembers, but the man is groggy and also has no memory. As the man in the jean jacket goes to untie him, but a man in a rancher shirt (Pepper) comes downs stairs also groggy telling him not to untie him because if he is tied up he must be tied for a reason, so they should just leave him be because he too has lost his memory.

The handcuffed man then wakes up, but no one can find the key. He is losing blood fast. All of the men start arguing and the guy in the rancher shirt runs into the bathroom and vomits. As he is in the bathroom he remembers a shooting and a kidnapping. After coming back the guy in the jean jacket goes to check the man on the floor with the broken nose who wakes up and begins to freak out and attack him and the other man. They ask him if he remembers anything and he tells them he doesn’t. The people in the room realize that a canister has busted open and the gas inside it has filled the room, which is what caused their memory loss and why they have a hard time breathing. The man with the jean jacket realizes he has a lighter in his pocket with the words "Love Erin" and he once again remembers bringing a little girl into a hospital.

The handcuffed man then tells the others about the phone ringing and they all freak out about his conversation. The Jean Jacket man assures them about the noise and static and that there are at least 2 people working with the people on the phone. The man with the broken nose goes to use the phone but the man in the rancher shirt breaks the chord saying that it’s not a good idea to call the police because there is a dead security guard in one of the lockers.

The three men then find a newspaper in the bathroom about the kidnapping about a rich man named Coles and his financial advisor McCain and that they were kidnapped in a parking structure and that they have been missing for at least 2 days. This leaves two out of the five men hostages and three other men, kidnappers. The man with the broken nose find a bunch of saws and other tools and try using them to break holes in the walls and the bars. As the three men argue about how to use the tools the handcuffed man sees the gun under the man tied to the chair. The man almost gets to it, but the three other get there first. The man in the jean jacket gets control of the gun and decides to hold on to it just in case.

An emergency phone rings and the man in the jean jacket answers it. The men on the other line say that they will be at the warehouse at sundown. They freak out and continue to use the saw blades on the bars but end up breaking every one of them. The man with the broken nose remembers that he was one of the men kidnapped and that he is McCain. He goes up to the guy in the rancher shirt and says he is Coles. He then says something about his kids and the two decide to get the better of the guy in the Jean Jacket. During the struggle the man with the Jean Jacket gets the better of them and points the guy at McCain asking him what he knows threatening him with the gun and McCain says he lied to get the man with the Jean Jacket away.

The three men then realize light coming from a place high and they use a chord to hoist the man with the broken nose up who sees it’s a bunch of security glass and can’t break through. He asks for the gun to shoot a hole in it, but the man in the Jean Jacket refuses to relinquish the gun, so they hoist him up to the window to use the gun. After being hoisted up to the window, he sees his reflection and remembers being on of the kidnappers. But he slips and falls off of the ledge onto a piece of glass, but is not dead. Only problem is now the gun was left on the ledge and there is no way to get to it. As the man in the rancher shirt gets up the man with the broken nose gets mad that he is taking his side and unties the man from the chair.

The cops tail the kidnapper to a gas station and get pictures. They are able to identify him as Stefan Burian, a meth dealer. Unfortunately a sixteen wheeler gets in their line of sight and don’t see which car he gets into as two cars leave the station at the same time going in different directions and they follow one to a bar filled with Mexicans and realize that they have followed the wrong car so they move to follow the tracker.

The man in the rancher shirt takes the man in the Jean Jacket to the bathroom to clean up his wound and reveals that he remembers who he is from the oranges around him remembering he has orange trees on his estate. He is in fact Coles, the man with the broken nose was right, but Coles believes that he was lying since he has no kids and that the man in the jean jacket is in fact McCain. The man in the jean jacket tries to convince him he is not, but then the man who was tied to a chair comes in punching them.

All of men eventually come out of the bathroom and see a Mexican man and his son near the building but they drive away ignoring them. Coles then moves to the chairs with the ropes underneath them and remembers what happened a little. He was tied up and was able to break his chair and get away. In a struggle the handcuffed man was shot and the gas canisters fell over. As the men argue about how to get the gun down when the handcuffed man tells them he remembers the man with jean jacket. He tells a story bout how he and the man with the jean jacket took a boat on a lake during a storm. The boat was knocked over and the jean jacket guy saved him and told them to hold onto the boat and never give up. They held onto the boat for 4 hours until they reached safety. After his story the man in the handcuffs dies.

The remaining four men develop a plan and rig a hug barrel tied to a rope facing the door and the man who was tied up will drop it and they knock out the lights. The man in the jean jacket takes his lighter out and finds a picture of a little girl in it, Coles tells him to know that he has someone out there.

The men then start to arrive and two of them walk in, but then the man who was tied up remembers that he is Brockman and he is with the men. He then positions the barrel toward the Jean Jacket man. The three other guys wonder why he hasn't dropped the barrel and he throws it at the jean jacket man nearly hitting him. The men who just enter the building freak out and shoot Brockman to death. The man with the broken nose shoots one of them killing them and the other is shot by the man with the jean jacket. Stefan enters the building with his men and tells Coles to get on the floor. The man with the broken nose tells the man with the jean jack to hit him knowing that he is McCain and that the man in the jean jacket is Woz.

Woz tells Stefan a story about what happened and remembers the whole incident. He was part of the kidnapping, taking Coles and McCain from the parking structure. Then He, Brockman, and Bobby (the handcuffed man) tied up Coles and McCain. Coles got out and knocked out Brockman when he went back into the room and tied him to a chair. Bobby saw this and ran downstairs to stop McCain and Coles, but drops his gun. Woz comes out of the bathroom and sees this getting into a fight with McCain, who attacks him with a shovel. Coles and Bobby fought upstairs as McCain and Woz scrambled for the gun. Coles is able to handcuff Bobby, but knocks over the gas canisters. Bobby is then shot by McCain and Woz and falls over the bar. Woz breaks McCain's nose and then fell back a few feet away from him before they all passed out.

After taking Brockman, Bobby, and the dead cops bodies away Stefan gives Woz a gun telling him to kill. At this point Woz remembers his daughter, Erin, had a weird reaction to her insulin and died in the hospital after his wife left him. Woz takes Coles, McCain, and the dead cop outside and talk about running, but Woz points the gun at the two of them saying that this is him and that he has nothing since his daughter is dead and his wife left him. Two shots are heard.

The two cops get a call from the station about the Mexicans who reported suspicious activity at the where house and move. As they get there they start shooting with one of the men there.

Stefan and his men hear something over the radio about an undercover cop and approach Woz asking if he's a cop. Woz remembers that his name is Mitch Woziak, an undercover detective. He got the job knowing Bobby as a kid and has been undercover for nine months. Stefan notices there are no bodies in the hole and is about to shoot him with when McCain comes and attacks him with a shovel as Coles runs. McCain is then shot by Stefan and Stefan moves to fight Woz. Woz, now exhausted tries to retreat but Stefan points a loaded shotgun at him, but Coles comes back and shoots Stefan in the head before he kills Woz. Woz notices that Stefan knocked over a gas can and blows him up with Erin's lighter.

As the cops and medics arrive on the scene Eliza Coles goes to meet her husband and Woz recognizes her. They were having an affair together and Woz came up with a plan to have people he knows (Stefan and Bobby) who could kill him, so they came up with the kidnapping idea. With Coles and McCain dead Eliza would get the money and there would be no financial adviser (McCain) they would be free to take Coles' money.

The film ends with Woz realizing all of this and remembers meeting Eliza at a bar. Woz takes the supposed ransom money and returns it to the cops and Eliza realizes he is giving up their plans of taking the money and running away to continue their affair.