We didn’t see it coming, but in retrospect, we should have, because if you make enough action movies over a long span of years, it’s bound to happen sooner or later: In his new film, “Memory,”Liam Neesonplays a hit man with Alzheimer’s.
It’s a staple of Neeson’s action films that he always has some personal problem that is working against him. In two of his movies, he was an alcoholic. But this is the first time he hashad dementia. Fortunately, killing people (not to mention breaking a car window with another guy’s head) must be a skill like musical ability — it’s one of the last things to go.
When we first meet Alex (Neeson), he is at an early stage in his illness but he’s getting worse, and we know where he’s heading. How do we know?Because the movie includes a scene of Alex visiting his older brother at a nursing home, and the brother doesn’t even recognize him. At this rate, Alex will soon be assassinating the wrong people, leaving his gun in the freezer and insisting that people stole his silencer. His days as a contract killer are numbered.
Then one day he gets an assignment through one of his usual clients, and when he arrives at the house where he is to commit the murder, he finds that the intended victim is a 12-year-old girl. He turns around and leaves. He won’t do it. And with that single act of decency, he puts himself up against all the evil characters he has ever worked for.
“Memory,” based on the 2003 Flemish film “The Memory of a Killer,” is directed by Martin Campbell, whose work has a certain elan. He made “Casino Royale,” thebest James Bond movie; “The Foreigner” (2017), the best of Jackie Chan’s American movies; and “Protégé” (2021), which made a strong case forMaggie Qas a genuine movie star. Like the others, “Memory” has the feeling of a quality product, but something diffuse in the storytelling keeps it earthbound.
The movie has three points of focus, when two would have been better. There’s Monica Bellucci, as the maternal but thoroughly evil head of a crime syndicate; Neeson, as her brand-new and most dangerous enemy; and Guy Pearce as the detective on the case. Neeson and Bellucci are all that any action movie needs, but in “Memory,” the screenwriters lean so heavily in Pearce’s direction that he gets about as much screen time as Neeson.
不过,如果你能超越临界silliness of the premise, you can see what made Neeson want to make this movie. “Memory” provides him with some unusual acting moments. For example, he has a graphic and agonizing scene in which he operates on himself. He uses alcohol to clean out an abdominal wound and then — you haven’t lived until you’ve seen this — he sets his stomach on fire to cauterize the wound.
All right, we get it. He’s a tough guy.
Neeson also does a good job tracing his character’s cognitive deterioration over the course of the movie. As such, “Memory” is like a hybrid, mixing serious sections withNeeson’s usual action stuff. Call it a little bit of this and a little bit of that, or not enough of this and not enough of that.
Whatever “Memory” is, Neeson fans will want to see it.
L“Memory”:Action thriller. Starring Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce and Monica Bellucci. Directed by Martin Campbell. (R. 114 minutes.) In theaters Friday, April 29.