![]() ![]() The film plays better - but only slightly - if viewers consider the comments Neeson made in early 2021 about being ready to retire from this kind of film after only a few more (presumably Memory and his forthcoming thriller Retribution). As Alex, Neeson is portraying a man who knows he can’t continue being the kind of person Neeson has played across so many movies. Memory’s most fascinating aspect ultimately lies outside of the film itself, if it’s read as a meta-commentary on Neeson’s action oeuvre. Serra’s investigation into Alex’s criminal employers is the one place where Memory makes anything approaching a compelling statement, even if it’s a shopworn one about the institution of law enforcement and the ways it’s used to enforce the status quo more than to find justice. More compelling is Guy Pearce’s weary Agent Serra, who at times serves as the de facto protagonist when Memory’s script demands that Alex disappear for a while. Arguably, the film suffers from these two men being too good at their jobs, so one’s commitment overexposes the others’ shortcomings. Yet in Memory, the thrill is gone - his intensity is no longer surprising, and as committed as Neeson is to remaining on screen and present for most of his character’s stunts, his limitations appear more apparent than usual, given Campbell’s clear shot blocking and the clean cuts that stitch the film’s action scenes together so neatly. Neeson reads as if he’s operating in the same mode of desperate competence he originally perfected in Taken. The promise of any Liam Neeson action movie is Liam Neeson committing startling acts of brutality, but Memory follows Alex around as he threatens a lot of people with violence while only occasionally committing any. ![]() In terms of the actual action, Memory is firmly a lesser work from Campbell, who seems more interested this time around in ineffective melodrama than in physical conflict. Journeyman director Martin Campbell has reliably delivered exciting action sequences in films running the gamut from extraordinary (the 2006 James Bond reboot Casino Royale) to surprising (Jackie Chan’s 2017 Taken riff The Foreigner) to forgettable (2021’s Maggie Q vehicle The Protégé). On its own, Memory is a tepid thriller, competently made. Photo: Rico Torres/Briarcliff Entertainment This means he isn’t just out to punish a crime syndicate for crossing a line he’s trying to symbolically atone for a life of ill-gotten gains while he’s still capable of taking meaningful action. His health is deteriorating, and he’s suffering from memory loss, a harbinger of severe cognitive decline to come. Memory’s big swerve is that Alex is in a race against time. His chief pursuer: FBI agent Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce), who’s after the same guys Alex is. As he becomes a vigilante determined to make them pay, he’s hunted by both sides, with criminals and law enforcement coming at him along the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas. When he’s asked to do the one thing you never ask an action hero to do - kill a kid - Neeson turns on his employers. Neeson plays Alex Lewis, a world-class assassin who takes jobs from some of the worst people in the world. Memory begins with a slight inversion of the Neeson Action Formula: This time, he’s one of the bad guys, kind of. Then it slowly settles into tired mimicry. ![]() Memory is the latest of these films, and at first, it seems like it’s capable of subverting the formula. In each case, a long-buried history of clinically effective violence is unearthed, and for about two hours, Neeson makes the criminal element sorry they ever thought picking on a guy in his 60s would be easy. Or his son is murdered ( Cold Pursuit), he loses his job ( The Commuter), or his family moves on without him ( Unknown). His peaceful domestic life is shattered when something is taken from him: His daughter is kidnapped ( Taken), and so is his ex-wife ( Taken 2), who’s then murdered in Taken 3. Since then, too many action films starring Neeson have followed the steps of a familiar dance. It’s been 14 years since director Pierre Morel redefined Liam Neeson’s place in cinema with his 2008 film, which cast the dramatic actor against type as an ex-CIA operative and combat powerhouse. In retrospect, it’s remarkable how long a shadow Taken has cast. ![]()
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