‘Memory’ Review: Getting Too Old for This

The premise of “Memory,” the latest action thriller from the “Casino Royale” director Martin Campbell, is fascinating: Liam Neeson plays Alex Lewis, an aging assassin struggling with Alzheimer’s disease. As Alex seeks vengeance against a child trafficking operation in El Paso, he becomes increasingly unpredictable to the F.B.I. team tracking him, led by the contemplative agent Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce). Unique premise aside, “Memory” is an absurd slog. Its plot clichés and wooden performances are far more enduring than its narrative.

This is a remake of the 2005 Belgian film “The Memory of a Killer,” which was a critical success. “Memory,” then, is yet another embarrassing American adaptation. It plays as if the worst episodes of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” have all been processed in a blender and then stretched to nearly two hours long. The script, by Dario Scardapane, is threadbare in some parts and redundant in others. Its treatment of female characters is, at best, bleak. There are multiple pauses for eye roll-inducing genre fare, like a violent police interrogation or a shot of the grizzled Agent Serra staring out a window and drinking scotch. The American characters are performed almost entirely by British or Australian actors, a choice that might be less noticeable in a film not set in Texas.

Neeson is fine and gets to hit his standard action movie beats, like growling out threats and bedding a much younger woman. But he’s also surprisingly underutilized — the film shifts focus to Agent Serra early on, leaving Alex and his disability to languish in the shadows. Whatever appeal this film had in its original iteration has been sapped out, leaving a story that, when not completely vexing, is either mind-numbing or hilarious by accident.

Memory
Rated R for bullets in brains and damsels in distress. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters.