3 Short Paragraphs: Memory

2022, Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) -- download

I need a proper tag for "Liam Neeson as aging ____" movies. Considering the number of times I have mentioned this says a lot -- well, either says a lot about his type-casting, or me being prone to repeating myself. The weird aspect of this movie is that the tag is also the advertised plot of the movie, but in reality, its barely a subplot. I get that Neeson is phoning-in these movies, probably just collecting as many paychecks as he can before he's relegated to just playing the Stationary Old Guy, but WTF is the director of Casino Royale doing such an amateur job, that I assumed this was just some C-grade director assigned to adapt the popular Belgian flick De zaak Alzheimer, about a hitman with Alzeimer's.

Like all adaptations, the core of the movie is there. Neeson is Alex Lewis, a hit man for organized crime out of Mexico. He has Alzheimer's. He's on medication but still losing details, and he wants out. But, as always, one last job: take out a wealthy man and recover some info, but also kill Beatriz, the 13 year old daughter of a sex trafficker recently killed while being taken into custody; she knows things about the world her father forced her into. Alex refuses, and that causes things to spin out for him. The thing is that after that initial setup, the movie really stops being focused on him as the Aging Hitman struggling with Alzheimer's and mainly follows rogue FBI Special Agent Serra (Guy Pearce, Memento), as he struggles to uncover the child trafficking ring based out of the illegal immigrant detention areas built by the wealthy man Lewis was sent to kill. 

As the movie continues, the ties between the two plots are there, but the main character relegated to the background, doing his best to remember who he has to kill, and assist Serra with justice for the girl. Much of the movie seems so utterly phoned-in, it can only be something assigned to Neeson & Campbell by those purple suits that haunt the periphery of my film viewing. The supporting cast is ironically barely memorable, and the use of Pearce and Monica Belluci (Spectre), as the Bad Guy, is just utterly wasted.