Now that Nicolas Cage has had his inventory upgraded as of late (due to his pretty efficiency in “Pig” and his self-aware flip within the current “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”), and Bruce Willis has retired, I think that Liam Neeson goes to be the following actor who finds himself within the important crosshairs for doing far too many forgettable films. His newest, “Memory,” is already his second such movie in 2022, and since his listing of upcoming tasks on IMDb mentions titles like “Retribution,” “In the Land of Saints and Sinners,” “The Revenger” and “Cold Pursuit Sequel Project,” it doesn’t seem that he shall be disembarking this explicit gravy practice anytime quickly. To his credit score, “Memory” is not less than barely extra formidable than a lot of the related movies Neeson has completed just lately. But it surely’s definitely not sufficient to make you overlook how considered one of our strongest actors is once more losing his time on the sort of half-baked thriller Charles Bronson used to crank out with miserable regularity in the course of the waning days of his profession.
The time around, Neeson performs Alex Lewis, one other professional employed killer with a selected set of abilities. As this movie opens, he is contemplating leaving his life behind after seeing indicators of Alzheimer’s that have already claimed his brother. However, Alex accepts one ultimate job in El Paso, during which he has to bump off two separate folks and get well some vital flash drives from the primary sufferer. He pulls off the primary hit simply sufficient however when he discovers that the second sufferer is a 12-year-old lady (Mia Sanchez), Alex refuses to tug the set off and retains the flash drives for himself as an insurance coverage coverage.
Sadly, the lady had been pimped out by her father to quite a lot of rich and highly effective folks, together with the wicked son of highly effective actual property developer Davana Sealman (Monica Bellucci), who put out the unique hit so as to assist her youngster to evade justice. After tying up that free finish, she additionally requires Alex to be killed. However though he is slipping mentally, he is nonetheless skillful sufficient to evade her employed goons and kill everybody remotely related to the crime. Alex additionally vegetation sufficient clues for an FBI activity power led by Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce), who additionally tried to assist the lady and feels responsible about what occurred to her, to pursue him whereas at all times remaining one step forward of them.
If the fundamental story factors of “Memory” sound acquainted to you, it might be that you’ve got seen “The Memory of a Killer,” the 2003 Belgian crime drama that has been Americanized right here (with each movie primarily based on Jef Geeraerts’ novel The Alzheimer Case). Though this model roughly follows the identical narrative path of its predecessor, the unique movie, though a superbly good style movie in its personal proper, was extra curious about its central character (performed in an excellent efficiency by Jan Decleir) as he’s compelled to reckon with each the burden of his previous misdeeds and the cruelties of his current situation.
“Memory” does start to work when Neeson will get a maintain of script’s extra dramatically impactful moments, however, these scenes are just too few and much between to be really efficient. Dario Scardapane’s screenplay tends to place extra emphasis on the massive motion beats, that are implausible sufficient as is, and doubly so when you think about that they contain a personality with deteriorating cognitive skills. Though these scenes are dealt with some model by director Martin Campbell, whose oeuvre consists of one of many easiest James Bond movies (“Casino Royale”) and plenty of stuff that shall be politely neglected right here, they wind up overwhelming the human drama involving Neeson’s character. That is particularly evident throughout a brand new, much less considerate finale during which one of many key villains is dispatched in a particularly grotesque method so as to give the gorehounds within the viewers an ultimate thrill earlier than the tip credit. Aside from Neeson, the one efficiency of the word right here comes from Bellucci, whose casting right here is sudden, to say the least.
“Memory” is a bit higher than nearly all of Neeson’s current motion excursions and there is a probability it might show to be higher than most of his future tasks. Nevertheless, that does not show to be sufficient to make it price watching, and people fortunate sufficient to have seen “The Memory of a Killer” are more likely to be upset as nicely. Sure, a bit of extra effort has gone into the making of “Memory,” so it is a disgrace—and an ironic one besides—that the tip outcomes are so forgettable.