Mark Reviews Movies: MEMORY (2022)

Memory, Open Road Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 28, 2022

Memory features an intriguing premise, revolving around a professional killer whose mind is failing him. The assassin is played by Liam Neeson, that go-to action star, who's given a role here that allows him a chance to play more than the tough, stoic persona that has made him a go-to action star in his later career. In this one, Neeson taps into a level of vulnerability that reminds us of his more diverse range as an actor. That the role is only a reminder, not a full return to form, is a disappointment—mostly because it means the movie itself doesn't live up to its own potential.

First, there's the central conceit, which feels more like a gimmick than a consistent trait or a foundation for exploring this character. Neeson plays Alex Lewis, a roving American hitman who's now based out of Mexico. In the opening sequence, we watch as he stalks a man, disguises himself as an orderly at a hospital, and proceeds to garrote his target in front of the man's bedridden mother. Obviously, this killer means business. When Alex returns to his car, he discovers that he has misplaced his keys, and from his reaction, it's also obvious that this is more than a momentary, one-off lapse of memory.

Indeed, Alex has Alzheimer's, like an older brother whom he visits in a full-time care facility in between his jobs of killing people. He takes medication to help his condition, but the time of it helping is coming to an end. While Alex is certain it's time to retire from his work, there's no retirement in his business, as his boss makes clear when he gives him yet another assignment.

This one involves a sex trafficking ring, as Alex is tasked to kill a man who knows about it and a teenage girl whose father has forced her into it. He kills the first target, but when it comes time to murder the girl, he has a lapse in his memory and/or a crisis of conscience. He won't a kill child, even though he certainly seemed prepared to do so, up until the moment he lost track of himself.

That's a fascinating and provocative idea—that this seemingly heartless, cold-blooded killer reverts to some more basically decent state with the disappearance of what he has learned and done over the decades. Sadly, screenwriter Dario Scardapane, adapting Jef Geeraerts' 1985 novel The Alzheimer Case (previously adapted as a 2003 Belgian film, released in the United States as The Memory of a Killer, on which this version is also based), seems uninterested in that concept. Following that setup, the rest of the story becomes almost entirely about its plot. It features a vague labyrinth of corruption, which basically amounts to Alex hunting down and killing the people who wanted the girl killed and now, since he knows too much, want him out of the picture, too.

To be clear, Alex is the most interesting character in this story, and his predicament, along with all of the questions it raises about morality, is the most promising thread here. Unfortunately, he becomes more of a background player in the plot, which focuses as much on the police investigation into the trafficking ring and the assassin's actual or apparent body count.

The main figure on the investigative end of the story is an FBI agent named Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce), who wants justice for the abused girl. He finds his efforts stalled by local police, the wealthy woman (played by Monica Bellucci) who's behind the cover-up, and Alex himself, who is killing off suspects before they can be arrested by the federal agent and his colleagues (Taj Atwal plays Vincent's stalwart partner, and Harold Torres plays a Mexican federal agent whose willing to cross lines his straitlaced American counterpart won't).

Through all of it, the killer somehow remains a step or two ahead of Vincent's search for him, despite his condition. That Alex's memory problems only emerge to occasionally complicate or add a brief barrier to his own hunt shows how disinterested Scardapane and director Martin Campbell are in the character, his past, his health dilemma, and all of tricky quandaries and notions created by this man's awakened or newfound sense of morality.

The resulting double-chase plotting is alternately serviceable and contrived (not only because of the inconsistency of Alex's mental deterioration, either). It is always, though, straightforward, with each step of both pursuits easily and hastily moving forward, and fairly simplistic, as a good number of those steps results in a chase, a standoff, or a shootout of some sort.

There's a decided hesitancy on the part of the filmmakers, in terms of examining its underlying themes (primarily morality, justice, and the lines between them) and in giving some time, weight, and consideration to its main character. He's the most promising element of Memory, which only cares about him as much as he can keep the plot moving, even after he's out of his own story.

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