A professor (Neeson) has an accident on a work trip to Berlin. After he wakes up from a coma four days later, he has to prove his identity after no one recognizes him – including his own wife. Then another man claims to be him.
It’s engrossing if you don’t ask too many questions about the plot and if you don’t mind key elements of the story appearing to have been borrowed from the Jason Bourne films.
Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons star.
The jungle setting is visually stunning.
It's powerful and moving, especially given that it's based on true events.
The stirring music is by Ennio Morricone.
Three brothers live with their father (Anthony Hopkins) in the wilderness and plains of Montana. The youngest, Samuel (Henry Thomas), is due to marry Susannah (Julia Ormond), but his would-be wife is attracted to the middle brother Tristan (Brad Pitt) and simultaneously yearned for by the older brother Alfred (Aidan Quinn). These conflicting emotions play out against the changing times (World War I, Prohibition), and – in Tristan’s case – against the Native American traditions he embraces.
This is an unusual, intelligent film that covers a lot of narrative ground but never becomes trite or silly.
There are excellent performances all round. It’s moving but not sentimental. Hopkins a little wasted in terms of minimal dialogue, but when he’s on he’s very good. Pitt is better than usual, too, rising to the challenge of being at the centre of the story.
Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) is a bored housewife who becomes obsessed with the personal ads in her newspaper – particularly those between a couple called Susan and Jim. Her life changes when she starts stalking Susan (played by Madonna) around the streets of New York and becomes accidentally involved in a crime involving a pair of stolen Egyptian earrings. Then Roberta has a bump on the head and can’t even remember her own name. She’s forced to begin a new life with a new identity, while simultaneously being pursued by a killer.
Not funny enough to work as a comedy nor exciting enough to work as a drama, the story often falls flat. It tries to become a sort of farce but then misses opportunities to squeeze comedy out of absurd situations. Compare it to What’s Up, Doc? to see how it could have been done so much better.
Arquette is fairly sweet as the lead character. Madonna is pretty good, too, largely because she barely speaks. Roberta’s husband (Mark Blum), sister-in-law (Laurie Metcalf) and new boyfriend (Aidan Quinn) are merely so-so, largely because of the average script. Deadpan comedian Steven Wright is also present, but criminally underused.
The soundtrack is bizarrely inappropriate, with clanking synths and drums almost drowning out everything else. Only Madonna’s “Into the Groove” and a burst of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” redeem it.
As it lumbers towards a laboured conclusion, you realise that the “Egyptian earrings” plot is one thread too many. It could have been ditched entirely to keep the focus on the various relationships, as there’s enough going on already with the strands about memory loss and mistaken identity. It’s far from a terrible film – just a bit of a mess.
