Expat tech-whiz Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart) seems normal, apart from a scarred back that’s straight out of a David Cronenberg movie. His wife is dead, his daughter Amy (Liana Liberato) has moved in with him in Brussels, they’re having heated-but-normal adjustment squabbles.
Except one day, Ben’s bustling office is gone, as are all traces of his identity. In a turn that will draw, and deserve, comparisons with “Taken,” Ben must go on the run, Amy in tow.
After the nonrevelation that Dad has a top-secret identity, the rest is gobbledygook, though it sprints along agreeably. Liberato gives a smart, nonwhining performance as the good girl coping with Daddy’s lack of job security. Eckhart’s another matter. He’s adequate, but there is something about his raspy voice and WASPy body language that’s more in tune with being the bad guy at the board meeting than the hero racing through the train station.
Olga Kurylenko, who looks like she should be tussling with Anna Wintour and not the head of SPECTRE or whatever, turns up mostly in the final third. Unfortunately, that’s just as the script takes a nosedive, and she’s got the worst of it, via lines like, “These people will stop at nothing to get what they want.”
Director Philipp Stölzl’s greatest accomplishment is making placid Brussels look like a nest of intrigue. When you’re an American on the run, even the signs to the restroom look sinister.