‘Memory’ movie review: A forgettable assassin saga

Despite its impressive pedigree, Memory moves like molasses and is best erased from the hard drive as quickly as possible

There is a sub-genre of movies featuring assassins — the males are super skilled with some weird quirk and the women are uniformly beautiful with a fondness for fetish fashion. An assassin with a memory problem will have every pop psychologist turning somersaults on their couches in glee. Jason Bourne is the most famous amnesiac assassin of them all. 

In Martin Campbell’s  Memory we have a hitman with different kind of memory problem — early onset dementia. When Alex Lewis (Liam Neeson) refuses a hit on a child, he has the bad guys who ordered the hit as well as the good guys— the FBI, local police and the Mexican intelligence after him. In the midst of all this he has to work with his unreliable memory, making notes on his arm quite like Leonard Shelby in  Memento. 

Proving the interconnectedness of all things, Guy Pearce from  Memento plays Vincent, the driven FBI agent with bad hair, which one can connect to his Richard Ryan in the mini-series Mare of Easttown where he was a suspect solely for the sheer awfulness of his hair.  

The film is an adaptation of Jef Geeraerts’ novel,  De Zaak Alzheimer, and a remake of the 2003 Belgian film,  The Alzheimer Case. Campbell, who was responsible for two very successful James Bond reboots — Golden Eye and  Casino Royale does not seem to firing on all cylinders with  Memory. 

The cast (Leeson and Pearce) are either sleepwalking through their roles or acting like they are in a spoof. Monica Bellucci as real estate Moghul wears lovely clothes and makes scary pronouncements while pouting dangerously. The action is sporadic and tedious. Despite its impressive pedigree,  Memory moves like molasses and is best erased from the hard drive as quickly as possible. 

‘Memory’ is currently running in theatres