Memory

"Justice comes down to him." From The Marksman

Vigilante revenge is riddled through American thriller films, and nobody does it better than Liam Neeson. In an interview, he believes audiences love seeing the big old guy kicking butt for the rest of us stuck home from covid, retirement, or whatever.

In Martin Campbell's Memory (the 78-year-old Casino Royale director like Neeson still has his mojo), he plays Alex Lewis, a contract killer telling his sponsors he's done, but they refuse to accept his offer. Because his current contract involves murdering a 13-year-old girl, Beatriz (Mia Sanchez), he's not going to do it, period! Per usual, Neeson's hardcore vigilante has his limits: Involving children is a non-no, and it's an immediate softener for the audience. Plus, such a code allows the essential Neeson to emerge-a good guy underneath his "special skills."

This refinement of past assignments, this surfacing of a standard that brooks no trafficking in young people, is a moral advance for an immoral assassin. The audience immediately sides with the hit man and shows no sympathy for the rich people doing the reprehensible trafficking. Memory's loaded with sympathy for Alex, especially when he connects with FBI agent Vincent, played by Guy Pearce (a nice touch as we remember him in that classic thriller, Memento). Both are tough men on the opposite sides of the law, who have a sympathetic side that ingratiates without sapping the tough guy the audience has always savored.

The strongest leitmotif is that of memory, or the lack thereof, so that the early-onset Alzheimer's plays a technical part of the plot and a thematic reminder that combating trafficking is going to involve memory, not just of the computer kind. One memory Alex never loses is the murder of young Beatriz, for whose violent end Alex was not responsible.

Along the way, this layered thriller comments on the limits of justice and the questionable answer of vigilantism. While the film leans toward the latter, so too does the stock Neeson character, whose sympathy we have when we see how free the bad boys and girls go.

They still need to be wary of old men with dementia-it's those hidden skills, Baby. "HIS MIND IS FADING. HIS CONSCIENCE IS CLEAR," says the memory poster.

I was pretty exited for this when I saw that the director of some of my favorite action films was teaming with Liam Neeson for a twisty thriller about a hitman with memory issues. Unfortunately, the unreliable narrator aspect is not really utilized to full effect here. I expected more twists and turns, but instead it's a mostly straightforward story. The story does have a little more heft than most action films though and also boasts a pretty loaded cast.

Neeson gives a fine performance of someone with Alzheimer's, however Guy Pearce is the real highlight here. Memory has some decent action and thrills, but ultimately doesn't quite reach its potential.

Nothing revolutionary with this film, in fact, it's pretty much formulaic, predictable, and cliched of every action film Neeson has already done - hence the name Memory?, but poorly produced and lazily written, that it ends up as a B-film. Even the ending was cringeworthy and something I'd expect from a high school drama class. The few action scenes were decent, but lacked proper choreography and camera shots to give them any 'wow' factor. I don't even know why this film was made, we certainly have seen it all before, and much better. The 114 min runtime felt much longer - even with the decent pacing, due to much filler and little substance. Casting and performances were decent. It's a generous 7/10 from me.

Ok, I'm the first to hold up my hand and say that after Taken Liam Neeson keeps churning out movies that are so so and usually his movies recently have been straight to video movies that are light on story and action.

This one however took me by surprise and was great. The whole cast are invested in the film and take the work seriously and that portrays to the screen well, Guy Pierce is great as a grizzled FBI agent fiercely trying to reconcile his past as well as doing what's right within the law.

There were a few unanswered pieces that could have been answered but all in all a great movie and I'm glad this one was light on the shaky cam.

I guess Marty Campbell wished to do the same with Neeson as he did for Mel Gibson, back in 2010, with EDGE OF DARKNESS. Same kind of lead role, gloomy, desperate, so that's a perfect character for a more than aging actor as Liam Neeson. But EDGE OF DARKNESS was much better however, and Martin Campbell is maybe here not so dedicated or inspired as he probably was twelve years ago. The topic of the aging contract killer is not new anyway and it's then always difficult to create surprises, but the ending, though being not that surprising, remains worth watching the whole film. That's my opinion. And for once, Liam Neeson is nearly shown as a supporting character, because in this movie, there is no real lead one, and no one could deny that Neeson as here the most interesting role he had since a long time; nothing to do with SCHINDLER'S LIST however; I mean since he began his action movies, since TAKEN actually.