Alex Lewis (Liam Neeson) is a veteran hitman wrestling with the early symptoms of dementia.
As he tries to reckon with this personal transition, Alex’s latest assignment turns out to have a few complications of its own…
After years in the wilderness, Martin Campbell has been busy making action movies: The Foreigner, The Protoge and now Memory.
They are not blockbusters, and I did not particularly like most of them, but it is good to know a craftsman like Campbell is working.
Notably, Memory marks Campbell’s entry into the Liam Neeson action hero franchise.
Rather than Taken or The Commuter (my personal favourite), this movie falls closer to Run All Night - a familiar potboiler that tries to bridge genre tropes with more dramatic complications.
Following The Protege, Memory is a big step up. As a movie on its own, Memory is a slight whiff.
Neeson is on solid form throughout, and he is a good match for Campbell’s slow-boil approach to action. He handles the character’s impairment with subtlety, and it never jars when it interferes with his work.
One wishes the script made more of a choice to focus on the character, because the film’s pitch is really just a subplot in a more expansive narrative that covers illegal activities on the US-Mexico border, and the government corruption which enables these activities to continue.
Guy Pearce co-stars as a veteran American agent who is on the trial of the people who have hired Alex, and the story is more focused on his investigation of a local bigwig (Monica Bellucci) and her involvement in sex trafficing.
The cast are mostly good but there is some obvious shaky accent work that takes some adjusting to. Sadly, Bellucci struggles with an overly literate role that does not feel like it was written to fit her facility with English.
Watching Memory after Campbell’s recent work, there is the sense of a stock company coming together. Cast members Ray Fearon and Taj Atwal, who had roles in The Foreigner and The Protege, appear as Pearce’s colleagues.
Overall, Memory is kind of anonymous. The action is solidly executed and the script throws in a few surprises, but nothing about it really sticks in the mind.
Hopefully Campbell and his collaborators find a more interesting vehicle for their talents.
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