The Memory of A Killer

B

The Memory of A Killer

Jan Decleir, Koen De Bouw. Dir= Erik Van Looy. Dutch (subtitled).

What a great premise for a movie: A hired killer suffers from progressive alzheimer’s. That interesting theme carries the audience over a lot of clichéd plot devices. The killer (JD) refuses to execute a 12 year old girl, so his boss has someone else do it. He is implausibly offended by this and starts a revenge spree, killing all the middlemen on the way to the boss. He has to get it done before he forgets who they are. Flashback montages convey his memory slipping away. Meanwhile the police are after him too. He has incriminating evidence against the big boss, but forgets where he hid it. Great European locations (Belgium) and the whole movie has an enjoyable European sensibility despite the very dark themes. The acting is uneven, as was the music, and the story line difficult to follow, since characters were not well-rounded and therefore not distinctive. But as far as assassin movies go, this is one of the best.