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“Memory,” writer-director Michel Franco ’s slippery dementia drama, is the kind of film that, initially, is so familiar and heavy-handed that your immediate impulse is to reject it. After all, it begins by capturing participants at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, photographed in oblique close-ups, each prolonging their memories with the phrase “I remember.” Before long, Franco’s gaze settles on Sylvia ( Jessica Chastain ), who is attending with her daughter Anna ( Brooke Timber ). Sylvia has been sober for twelve years, basically since her daughter was born. By virtue of being in this vulnerable space together, you get a sense of their closeness. But there’s more Sylvia hasn’t told Anna, such as why and how she became an alcoholic, that informs Franco’s interest in the ways trauma and disease can impact our sense of self. 

Franco’s film unfurls with measured curiosity, beginning when Saul ( Peter Sarsgaard ) literally enters the picture. Sylvia is sitting alone at a table during her high school reunion. A crowd in the background listens to a rousing speech; framed between the streamers, just out of focus, is Saul. His blurry visage, akin to a fuzzy recollection, stares at Sylvia. He walks over, sits down, and smiles. Sylvia storms out without a word spoken between them. Saul literally follows her home and stands outside her window like a jilted ex-lover. Though it begins to pour, he stays—sleeping in the hole of a tire with a black garbage bag as his blanket. There is very little dialogue spoken during this sequence, leaving the audience to feel along the walls of the dark narrative box that Franco has constructed.   

There are, of course, bumps and unique textures on the walls, primarily provided by Chastain and Sarsgaard, which also guide the viewer. As Sylvia, Chastain is knowingly rigid. She turns every lock on her door and diligently arms her home security system with the resoluteness of a warden. Though she works with her hands, assisting as a caregiver, around Saul, she doesn’t know what to do with them: She clasps, fidgets, and digs through her pockets. As Saul, Sarsgaard, with his loose walk and inquisitiveness, has an inviting presence. It’s perplexing then, why this seemingly amiable man would stalk Sylvia. 

Franco’s plotting offers three successive gut punches: Saul has early on-set dementia, Sylvia was raped at the age of 12 by Saul’s friend Ben, and Sylvia believes Saul raped her too. While the first two statements are true, the third, comes under greater scrutiny. These are two people whose memories have been afflicted in different ways: One by disease and the other by time and trauma. Saul’s brother Isaac ( Josh Charles ) complicates matters by offering Sylvia a job looking after Saul. Their dynamic, beginning on uneasy terms, soon flourishes, becoming the most captivating component of a film that stretches itself thin. 

“Memory” loses something when Franco steps away from Sylvia and Saul. Sylvia’s relationship with her daughter Anna, who wants the kind of freedom every teenager demands—the space to grow up—requires greater specificity: We’re just never sure of Anna’s likes and dislikes, aspirations or quirks. The same can be said of Sylvia’s extended family, the one belonging to her sister Olivia ( Merritt Wever ). Olivia’s children and husband are merely devices to pull further secrets from Sylvia. But their mechanics are so blatant, they almost disengage one from wanting to know more.  

Franco loves teasing impenetrable characters, see his Mexican dystopian thriller “ New Order ” and his English-language meditation “ Sundown ” for reference. But here, his plotting gets flattened a tad by his overworked approach. We know, for instance, the longer he keeps Sylvia and her estranged mother ( Jessica Harper ) in different spaces, how deep their fissure must be. The script’s game of keepaway becomes a tedious job of probing. Franco, thankfully, situates their divide in real emotion. Once Sylvia and her mother do collide—in a gut-wrenching, cathartic argument that reveals the latent memories that have permanently fractured this family—you understand why the pair have remained separated for so long. 

These gambits work because “Memory” isn’t a pure puzzle box. Told through a humanist lens, it never resorts to simple sentimentality. There have been plenty of films over the last five years about dementia (the good ones being “ The Father ” and “ What They Had ”). These works often take on characters in the latter stages of the disease, when the heartbreak is clear, and the toll is seen through the eyes of the affected family members. But Saul isn’t at that point yet. He still has agency, he still pines for love and carries regret. Saul’s dementia doesn’t pull focus toward the people around him; it centers how he is grasping his slipping reality. Thus, what arises are questions of capacity, of permission, and of autonomy. Can someone still fall in love, even if, day-by-day, they’re less and less like themselves? How do we respect the wishes of someone, who, one day, will not be capable of verbalizing their demands? What is the moment when one ceases to internalize their experiences?

“Memory” doesn’t necessarily have direct answers to those questions. But it does well enough to know that even if a person is damaged, whether emotionally or psychologically, that shouldn’t negate them from receiving the kind of support that doesn’t belittle them but treats them with a dignity that goes beyond their trauma.

In limited release now. Going wider in January.

Robert Daniels

Robert Daniels is an Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com. Based in Chicago, he is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) and Critics Choice Association (CCA) and regularly contributes to the  New York Times ,  IndieWire , and  Screen Daily . He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto. He has also written for the Criterion Collection, the  Los Angeles Times , and  Rolling Stone  about Black American pop culture and issues of representation.

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Memory (2023)

100 minutes

Jessica Chastain as Sylvia

Peter Sarsgaard as Saul

Merritt Wever as Olivia

Josh Charles as Isaac

Elsie Fisher as Sara

Jessica Harper as Samantha

• Michel Franco

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Liam neeson in ‘memory’: film review.

Guy Pearce co-stars as an FBI agent in a remake of a Belgian crime thriller involving a child trafficking ring and a hitman struggling with Alzheimer’s.

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

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The premise of Memory just might be the mother of all high concepts: A hired assassin has Alzheimer’s. It instantly evokes two possible interpretations: bruising black comedy would be one, thoughtful musing on life and death the other. In especially deft hands, a third option would meld the two. As directed by Martin Campbell from a screenplay by Dario Scardapane, and even with a couple of soulful actors at its center, that premise plays out as none of the above; it’s a mechanical plot point in a perfunctory actioner that leaves laughs — intentional ones, anyway — and existential meditations by the wayside.

Adapting the 2003 Belgian feature The Memory of a Killer , based on the novel De Zaak Alzheimer ( The Alzheimer Case ), Memory comes equipped with all the accoutrements of the contract-killer genre: the burner phones, the silencers, the laser sights, the Liam Neeson . This time, though, Neeson isn’t the law-and-order guy wielding questionable methods in the name of justice, but the mercenary who is faced with an unacceptable assignment — his target is a 13-year-old girl — and trying to do the right thing before his dimming cognitive lights go out permanently.

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Release date: Friday, April 29

Cast: Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce, Monica Bellucci, Taj Atwal, Ray Fearon, Ray Stevenson, Harold Torres

Director: Martin Campbell

Screenwriter: Dario Scardapane

To believe, as we’re meant to, that Neeson’s Alex Lewis spent his formative years in El Paso, Texas, where most of the action is set, would require its own cognitive disconnect. Then again, the production was shot mainly in Bulgaria, and there’s a vaguely intercontinental, pan-European vibe to the cast, from small supporting roles to Monica Bellucci ’s spiritless rendering of a villainous bigwig.

But the Lone Star State is meant to be more than a state of mind in Memory . It’s meant to put a topical slant on a storyline involving the abuse and trafficking of children. The teenager who Alex refuses to kill is an undocumented immigrant; a detention center for such children proves to be a vicious nexus of public and private interests; and the real-life unsolved murders of countless girls and women in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, haunts and drives a key character.

For all its questions of morality, mortality and politics, the film feels empty at its core, not unlike the sleek modern spaces where the story’s ultra-wealthy, ultra-corrupt and ultra-clichéd scheme and cavort joylessly. Matching the screenplay’s lack of nuance, Campbell ( Casino Royale , The Protégé ) orchestrates the proceedings with a flat efficacy, stringing together familiar action beats and churning up little that rings true.

As the movie opens, Alex pulls off a hit of gruesome expertise in a Guadalajara hospital, a scene that’s mirrored, with even more blood, in the film’s final stretch. However ruthless a killing machine Alex may be, his humanizing predicament becomes clear when, returning to his car after dispatching his victim, he struggles for a painful moment to remember where he put his car key. The pills he takes are designed to forestall the inevitable, and to help maintain an even keel he scrawls factoids on his inner forearm for easy reference. Neeson signals Alex’s frustration and his acknowledgment of defeat. He’s ready to quit this crazy business, a decision that his Mexico City contact Mauricio (Lee Boardman) rejects, hoisting a fat envelope of cash at him with instructions to kill two people in El Paso, a town Alex knows well.

After dispatching target No. 1, a well-to-do businessman (Scot Williams), and retrieving an item from his safe, Alex discovers that the second would-be victim is 13-year-old Beatriz (Mia Sanchez). With his customary violence, he lets his smarmy local handler (Daniel de Bourg) know that he wants the contract canceled, setting off a new round of cat-and-mouse in which he’s the quarry.

FBI agent Vincent Serra ( Guy Pearce ), meanwhile, has taken a particular interest in Beatriz, who was being pimped by her father (Antonio Jaramillo) and is now orphaned, after a sting by Vincent’s team, the agency’s Child Exploitation Task Force, goes spectacularly wrong. Vincent’s boss, Gerald Nussbaum (Ray Fearon), puts the task force on ice and sends Mexican investigator Hugo Marquez (Harold Torres) packing. But Hugo finds a reason to stick around, and neither Vincent nor his partner, Linda Amisted (Taj Atwal), is eager to pivot to run-of-the-mill local crimes. An El Paso detective (Ray Stevenson) isn’t thrilled to have them around, and Alex, in his last-ditch pursuit of truth and justice, is one step ahead of them all. If only he can remember where he put that flash drive filled with incriminating audio.

Scardapane (producer-writer of the series The Bridge and The Punisher ) advances the story via information drops posing as conversation. Case in point: “You realize we’re talking about one of the most powerful real estate moguls in the country, right?” Bellucci’s Davana Sealman, the mogul in question, pulls many puppet strings in the city, a power that her hedonistic son (Josh Taylor) depends on. The pileup of one-note characters also includes a prostitute (Stella Stocker) working the bar at Alex’s hotel, and a trophy-wife stereotype (Natalie Anderson) who feels like something out of a subpar Raymond Chandler knockoff, or an unintended spoof of one.

The involvement of Pearce is a wink and a nod to his role in a classic of the memory-affliction subgenre, Memento , a taut and masterful thriller in whose shadow Memory withers. Pearce is one of the greatest actors of his generation, and his performance is the strongest, most sustained and convincing element of the film — and one that frequently finds him in a vacuum.

He enters the story delivering a performance within a performance: In the attempted sting, Vincent poses as a john seeking the company of an underage girl. Even after he’s shaken off the layers of scuzz required for that role, there’s something off about Vincent, a sense that he’s uncared for. The explanation arrives in an eleventh-hour revelation that should be crushing in its sadness but is instead awkward in its narrative ineptitude.

To give that disclosure its intended impact, Campbell would have had to stir up certain undercurrents in the characters who interact with Vincent. Atwal comes closest in a final exchange that, against the odds in a movie that can feel propelled by an algorithm, produces a satisfying emotional zing.

However unsubtle the material, Neeson offers unforced glimmers of a soul lost to brutality as Alex wavers between a thickening mental fog and perfect lucidity when the plot demands it. But there’s also a sense of his effortless screen magnetism being shoehorned into a thriller boilerplate. And it’s tempting to imagine, when Alex is staring into the middle distance, forgetting where he is and why, that Neeson might be remembering when he played complex men like Alfred Kinsey and Michael Collins.

Full credits

Distributors: Briarcliff Entertainment, Open Road Films Production companies: Black Bear Pictures, Welle Entertainment, Saville Productions Cast: Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce, Monica Bellucci, Taj Atwal, Ray Fearon, Ray Stevenson, Harold Torres, Josh Taylor, Antonio Jaramillo, Daniel De Bourg, Scot Williams, Stella Stocker, Rebecca Calder, Atanas Srebrev, Lee Boardman, Natalie Anderson, Mia Sanchez Director: Martin Campbell Screenwriter: Dario Scardapane Based on the book De Zaak Alzheimer by Jef Geeraerts and on the picture De Zaak Alzheimer by Carl Joos and Erik Van Looy Producers: Cathy Schulman, Moshe Diamant, Rupert Maconick, Michael Heimler, Arthur Sarkissian Executive producers: Teddy Schwarzman, Ben Stillman, Peter Bouckaert, Rudy Durand, Tom Ortenberg, James Masciello, Matthew Sidari Director of photography: David Tattersall Production designer: Wolf Kroeger Costume designer: Irina Kotcheva Editor: Jo Francis Music: Rupert Parkes Casting: Pam Dixon, Dan Hubbard

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In Memory, Liam Neeson Gets to Act More Than Usual

Even those of us who’ve generally enjoyed Liam Neeson’s recent run of tough-guy roles sometimes forget that he can be a hell of a performer, too. His latest, Memory , directed by action legend Martin Campbell ( Casino Royale , The Mask of Zorro ), offers a helpful reminder that Neeson kicking ass need not mean Neeson on acting autopilot. The film, a remake of the 2003 Belgian thriller The Memory of a Killer , follows a hitman suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s, but the dementia element is more a narrative contrivance than a serious exploration of a debilitating illness. (For that, you might want to check out Gaspar Noé’s Vortex instead, also out this week.) But Neeson, who had been an intensely physical actor even before he started playing guys with special sets of skills, conveys the vulnerability, pain, and fear of the character so well that he turns a nothing plot element into something genuinely moving.

When we first meet Alex Lewis (Neeson), he’s posing as a nurse in order to brutally strangle a man visiting his sick mother in the hospital. Our hero is not a good guy: Alex has spent his life killing people for money, often at the behest of gangsters operating in and around El Paso, Texas. But when he’s given a job that involves targeting a young girl, he refuses to kill her. Is this a sign of a humanity he’s always had, or is it a newfound hesitancy brought on by his condition? “You’re going soft,” his boss, Mauricio (Lee Boardman), says, bitterly.

A greater conspiracy is unfolding, however. The girl, Beatriz (Mia Sanchez), was a child-trafficking victim, and a dogged FBI agent, Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce, who himself starred in Memento 22 years ago, a film to which Memory occasionally nods), is hoping she will be the witness to help him take down a massive human-trafficking operation. The conspiracy, however, reaches through the upper levels of El Paso society, including the family of local businesswoman and philanthropist Davana Sealman (Monica Bellucci). While Serra and his partners, among whom is Hugo Marquez (Harold Torres) of the Mexican intelligence agency, encounter obstacles legal and otherwise, Alex seems to be the one person who can cut through all that red tape — a deadly lone wolf with what is now a personal grudge and not a lot of time left.

That results in an intriguing confusion of loyalties that the film probably could have done more with; Serra and his crew are torn over whether to try and stop Alex or to let him work his killing-machine magic. But overall, Memory works not so much as a procedural — it’s a bit too simply plotted for that — as it does as a character study. Credit the actors, and director Campbell’s willingness to give them their space. Neeson, in particular, is well-suited to portray Alex’s growing fragility. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, haunted by the images of people he may or may not have killed, his fear and confusion are overwhelming. The actor has always had a thing for suffering; even his action movies are on some level about shame and regret and intense personal pain . But what was submerged in the previous movies is out in the open this time. One scene where Alex cauterizes a bullet wound in his torso with a bottle of liquor and a lighter is so agonizing that I’d believe it if you told me Neeson had actually burned himself.

There’s an interesting edge to the action, too. Alex smashes heads and blows away people (not all of them bad guys, either) with ruthless, automatic efficiency, but it all feels reflexive, as if it’s been programmed into his muscle memory. That speaks to why he’s able to keep offing people even as he seems to be losing his cognitive abilities. He’s been killing for so long that it comes as naturally to him as breathing. That makes for a compelling contrast: On the one hand, we get surprisingly effective and visceral violence — the genre spectacle at which Campbell has always excelled — and on the other, a very real tenderness and anguish that’s quite rare in this sort of flick. In the end, Memory ’s greatest asset might be that it knows exactly what it is — a fun combination of sleazoid action and surprising emotion. It’s the best kind of B-movie.

• movie review
• liam neeson
• martin campbell
• alzheimer's disease
• memory of a killer
• monica bellucci

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‘Memory’ Review: Getting Too Old for This

In this action thriller, Liam Neeson plays an assassin struggling with Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not as interesting as it sounds.

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By Lena Wilson

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.

Lena Wilson is a project manager at The New York Times and a freelance writer covering film, TV, technology and lesbian culture. More about Lena Wilson

‘Memory’ Review: Hit-Man Movie Remake Is a Retread of Familiar Liam Neeson Roles

Liam Neeson plays a bad guy who goes after worse guys, while the onset of Alzheimer's complicates matters, in this tough, déjà vu action movie.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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The less you remember about 2003 Belgian thriller “ Memory of a Killer,” the better, when it comes to its remake, directed by “Casino Royale” veteran Martin Campbell . Relocated to El Paso, Texas, this new version — which channels the brutal cynicism of recent Taylor Sheridan movies, or the even more ruthless tone of Ridley Scott’s “The Counselor” — takes the bones of a tough European crime drama and uses them as the grim gallows on which to hang yet another nihilistic Liam Neeson action vehicle.

These days, such Liam Neeson movies unofficially constitute a genre unto themselves. Starting with “Taken,” the Oscar-nominated actor who so sensitively played one of the screen’s great savers of souls in “Schindler’s List” has been reborn as a symbol of retribution. “Taken” came out in 2010, the year after the shocking skiing accident of real-life wife Natasha Richardson, and it has felt as if the actor himself was transformed by that tragedy, hollowed out and reduced to a rage machine. He is, as the mad dad in that movie said, a man with “a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career,” skills that have been unexpectedly honed into this incredibly specific, incredibly lethal persona.

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In film after film, multiple times a year, Neeson plays men who power forward in pursuit of vengeance or justice — like a human shark, or a deadly weapon with the safety catch removed. Through it all, Neeson remains a great actor, someone who seeks to understand the soul of such violent men, and that sets his projects apart from the countless other “Taken” knockoffs produced each year. His movies make money, and in turn, Neeson makes more movies, each one a lot like the last, to the extent that audiences reasonably know what to expect. “Memory” may surprise them — provided they’ve forgotten the movie on which it’s based, that is, since the twisty plot felt fresher in its earlier incarnation.

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Neeson plays Alex Lewis, a hit man who is very good at his job. We recognize this because Alex is pushing 70 and still getting the jump on men half his age. We recognize this too because hit men so often wind up being hunted and killed by other hit men in such movies, or else moving to a Caribbean island with a bag of diamonds — but “Memory” doesn’t feel like that kind of movie. Alex is slowly losing his mind to Alzheimer’s, which means retirement isn’t likely to be so glamorous. We recognize this when, after completing his first job, he misplaces the key to his getaway vehicle. We recognize this too when he rolls up his sleeve and we see all the key details scribbled there in black marker.

At this point, audiences will no doubt remember another movie, Christopher Nolan’s backsliding puzzle-box thriller “Memento,” so it’s a bit surprising when the film introduces none other than that film’s star, Guy Pearce, as the FBI agent whose investigation into a sordid sex trafficking ring puts him on a collision course with Neeson’s character. Relatively early in the film, Campbell shows the two men sitting in neighboring cars, unaware of one another’s existence. They are driving to the same place: a safe house where Vincent Serra (Pearce) is trying to protect a teenage girl who’s meant to be a key witness in his case. Alex has been sent there to kill her.

Alex gets as far as the girl’s bedroom before deciding not to pull the trigger. But the decision is much deeper than that. In refusing to fulfill the assignment, he’s signing his own death warrant. He will be hunted by other hit men, and he will take as many of the bad guys with him before he goes as possible. Alex knows he’s no hero, but there are worse people than him in the world, and “Memory” becomes a kind of brutal cleanup exercise in which he can achieve what law enforcement can’t. Typically, he’s the tool people call to snuff the star witness before the trial. Now, he’s the one who can step in when the police move too slow. For this to work, Alex and Vincent must make a sort of uneasy arrangement, and audiences must accept that the entire justice system is broken.

Alex’s employer, it turns out, is a powerful Texas millionaire, embodied by Monica Bellucci as a woman who once was beautiful and now is obsessed with trying to prolong her own life. Her character is complicit in an underage sex ring, the likes of which righteous QAnon followers are so adamant lurks in the shadows of American society. Maybe it does. In “Memory,” Neeson could be their very own action hero, working his way up the chain until he’s dismantled the whole operation.

There’s less action here than you might assume. Campbell’s directing style is typically energetic, shot with a muscular moving camera. But when the violence comes, it’s sudden, unexpected and irreversible. At one point, Alex makes a car blow up, and Campbell shows the explosions from miles away, a tiny flash of fire all but lost in a wide shot of El Paso. Later, Alex kills a man at the gym, and the murder goes unseen and unheard by the woman working out in the foreground.

In the end, “Memory” isn’t terribly convincing, but it’s at least trying for something more serious than most. Released earlier this year, thematically similar “Catch the Fair One” was a far better movie. But it didn’t star Liam Neeson. And if that’s a prerequisite when picking such films, you could certainly do worse than “Memory.”

Reviewed online, April 26, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 114 MIN.

• Production: A Briarcliff Entertainment, Open Road Films release of a Briarcliff Entertainment, Open Road Films, Black Bear Pictures presentation of a Welle Entertainment production, in association with Saville Prods., Arthur Sarkissian production. Producers: Cathy Shulman, Moshe Diamant, Rupert Maconick, Michael Heimler, Arthur Sarkissian. Executive producers: Teddy Schwarzman, Ben Stillman, Peter Bouckaert, Rudy Durand, Tom Ortenberg, James Masciello, Matthew Sidari.
• Crew: Director: Martin Campbell. Screenplay: Dario Scardapane, based on the picture "De Zaak Alzheimer" by Carl Joos, Erik Van Looy. Camera: David Tattersall. Editor: Jo Francis. Music: Rupert Parkes.
• With: Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce, Monica Bellucci, Taj Atwal, Ray Fearon, Harold Torres.

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Memory Review

A slick action-thriller that forges a fresh take on the genre… then forgets all about it..

Memory hits theaters on April 29, 2022.

I know what you’re thinking – Liam Neeson in yet another old man action flick. But Memory does bring something new to the table, at least: Alex Lewis (Neeson) is a hitman on the verge of retirement. But he’s hiding a terrible secret, and it’s not a government conspiracy or a trail of bodies in his wake. No, Alex has Alzheimer’s and it’s affecting his work in a big way. While Memory has a strong premise that suggests a whole new take on the action-thriller genre, it’s sadly let down by an uninspired and fairly standard storyline.

Essentially, Memory is a bog-standard action flick with a few fresh ideas thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, director Martin Campbell doesn’t quite stick the landing, with the most interesting aspects of the film feeling wildly underdeveloped.

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Take Alex’s Alzheimer’s, example. It’s not often you see a hitman grappling with the onset of a degenerative disease, and the little moments that show how it’s affecting him are some of the best in the movie. Neeson is remarkably subtle as he struggles with the memory loss, the slowing of fine motor skills, and the loss of judgement that are all early signposts for Alzheimer’s Disease.

However, often Memory feels like a missed opportunity. Although we watch Neeson struggle through some excruciatingly tense scenes, we don’t really feel what it’s like in Alex’s shoes. There’s plenty of opportunity to visualise Alex’s faltering memory in a unique and interesting way – Eternal Sunshine -style disappearing memories would have brought us closer to the man himself, just as seeing the world through his eyes would give us perspective on his condition as well as his plight.

What’s Liam Neeson’s best action flick?

Instead, we experience Alex’s trauma second hand. At various points throughout the film, he loses grip on what’s going on, often prompting him to angrily demand to know what’s happening or whimper with terrified shock at a predicament he had no idea he was in. Ironically, Neeson portrays the pain and suffering of a degenerative condition with finesse, vacillating seamlessly between seasoned contract killer and vulnerable Alzheimer’s patient. It just feels as though it could have gone a lot deeper, and as a result, it only touches the surface of what it could’ve been.

That said, Memory has some interesting style choices – especially when it comes to the way Campbell framed the action scenes. They’re often choppy, quick cut, and highly edited. At first glance, it’s another stylish way to depict frenzied, frenetic action, but it’s more than that. It’s also a neat way to approach the retiring hitman’s patchy memory by not quite showing the full sequence of events. But this, too, is sparse and underutilised.

Based on the novel De zaak Alzheimer by Jef Geeraerts, Memory trades the book’s very European setting for a Latin American twist, putting the action in El Paso, Texas. It works, too, with Alex now fighting to uncover a Mexican child prostitution ring with FBI agent Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce) as an unwitting aide. There are distinct shades of Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario in the way the story unfolds, and it would be easy to draw comparisons between Neeson’s ageing hitman and Benicio del Toro’s former Mexican prosecutor-turned-assassin. But it’s just that – shades. Memory is nowhere near as dark or complex, with a tendency to only delve surface deep.

Similarly, Guy Pearce’s world-weary FBI agent is almost a caricature rather than a real, warts and all portrayal of a man on the job. Pearce gets some great one-liners about how difficult it all is, with an interesting backstory that’s merely hinted at. But his character, too, is relatively underdeveloped. It’s a shame – something about this dynamic brings to mind the Luc Besson classic, Léon … but perhaps it’s just Pearce’s dodgy moustache.

Either way, there’s a lot going on underneath the surface. It’s just a shame we never really get to it.

Altogether, Memory is a surprisingly straightforward action-thriller that doesn’t quite live up to its premise. That’s a real shame, too. The twist on the tried-and-true formula is interesting enough to warrant a deeper exploration of memory and perception when it comes to such a violent profession. Sadly, it seems Campbell isn’t up to the task, stopping a bit short of making any poignant or even interesting observations. Instead, Memory meanders between rote action flick and not-quite-interesting-enough conspiracy thriller. It’s too bad that Memory is so unambitious; if it had only leaned into its intriguing premise more, it could’ve been much more than a rote action flick.

The Best Movies of 2021

Memory is an adequately stylish action-thriller that showcases Neeson’s deftness with a silenced pistol or a well-cut fight scene. It brings some fresh and interesting new ideas with a focus on the faltering memory of Neeson’s ageing hitman, but then does little to expand on that. Instead, we’re shown the occasional scene of Neeson forgetting something while prompting Guy Pearce to muse on the conspiracy-style plot. But the twists and turns are far too few to keep it interesting. Memory could have been a fresh and exciting take on the genre. Instead, it’s a typical old man action flick that’s ironically not very memorable at all.

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‘Memory’ Review: Liam Neeson Plays a Senile Hitman in a Dull Sex Trafficking Thriller

David ehrlich.

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At a time when each new Liam Neeson action thriller has become utterly indistinguishable from the last, Martin Campbell ’s “ Memory ” would at least seem to have a unique hook: In this one, the lanky Irishman plays a contract killer who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Surely that should be enough to help the latest page in the Redbox chapter of Neeson’s career stand out from the likes of “The Ice Road,” “The Marksman,” and the rest of the post-“Taken” glut.

Mix in Monica Bellucci as the Jeffrey Epstein-esque queenpin of a child prostitution ring, Guy Pearce — no stranger to stories about anterograde amnesia — as a mustached FBI agent prone to wearily saying things like “Memory’s a motherfucker,” and pliable source material (the 2003 Belgian thriller “The Alzheimer Case”) that’s enriched by its new setting along Texas’ southern border, and it sounds like the recipe for a solid little programmer. It sounds like the kind of C+ B-movie that’s just good enough to convince you that Neeson still has some skin in the game. “Memory” even boasts a last-minute cameo from America’s sweetheart, Jake Tapper!

Sure enough, the opening sequence alone offers more bang for your buck than the entirety of February’s “Blacklight.” It starts with grizzled hitman Alex Lewis (Neeson) disguising himself as a nurse at a Guadalajara hospital, murdering some young doofus with piano wire while the victim’s intubated mother helplessly watches from her bed, and then fleeing the scene in an Oldsmobile station wagon. It’s fun, it’s brutal, and it’s fully in command of Neeson’s screen image as a homicidal grandpa who’s killed more people than he could ever hope to remember — senile or not.

Even more promising is the seemingly unrelated scene that follows on the other side of the Rio Grande, where undercover FBI agent Vincent Serra (Pearce) rescues a preteen Mexican girl from her pimp father by posing as a customer. Serra even pays the girl a visit at the overcrowded detention center to which she’s transferred for deportation, and laments how little the law allows him to do for a child in such desperate need of help. What ties all of these characters together won’t be revealed for a very, very, very long time, but layering their introductions on top of each other seems to anticipate an unusually humane thriller that balances the mental decay of an expert hitman against the moral awakening of a useless fed.

Alas, while that is — in broad strokes — what Dario Scardapane’s convoluted screenplay attempts to do, “Memory” is indeed a motherfucker. Not only that, it’s also a perversely generic waste of an intriguing premise, as the failure of this dull and schlocky mess is made all the more frustrating (and bizarre) by the film’s apparent disinterest in Alex’s dementia. Yes, the guy can be forgetful. He’s prone to writing broad instructions for himself on his arm — not quite “shoot person in face,” but close — and at one point he orders an iced tea mere seconds after one is served to him. Alex knows, having watched his brother deteriorate from the same condition, that things are only going to get worse from here, and that motivates him to retire from a business that people only tend to leave in a bodybag.

And yet, Alex’s failing memory is often dramatized as a more general kind of incompetence; he doesn’t seem like a sick hitman so much as a bad one. He forgets to put the firing pin back into a pistol. He downloads sensitive client information onto a thumb drive. He spectacularly fails to protect a nice sex worker from getting shot in the neck, despite the fact that she spent the night with him for free — even the rusty killer George Clooney’s played in “The American” was able to keep that cliché alive! One genuinely fraught moment, in which Alex mistakenly assumes that he murdered the innocent child whose death is splashed across the local news, isn’t enough to salvage a character whose failing memory is less a poignant source of personal urgency than an occasional trick of narrative convenience.

Triggered by his refusal to shoot the same girl who Serra rescues from the clutches of Belluci’s human trafficking operation, Alex’s last-ditch attempt to do something good before he forgets that he can is clear enough in broad strokes, but his terminal case of atonement is handled in such clumsy fashion that even the film seems to grow bored of it. In fact, Alex may not even be the true protagonist of this story, as the jaded Serra — along with his squad of ethically ambiguous underlings, whose dialogue is so wooden that it seems like the actors are grimacing through fresh splinters with every line — gradually finds himself at the center of the action.

Although “action” might be too generous a term to describe the film’s sporadic bursts of close-up gunfire. One of them, set in an El Paso parking garage, is cleverly edited to express Alex’s growing confusion; all of them are used to punctuate an endless parade of dramatic scenes in which Serra tries to answer the various questions that Alex’s storyline has already spelled out for the audience (at least Pearce livens things up with a light Texas lilt and a well-earned frustration with America’s immigration laws). The most excitingly choreographed movement in the entire movie is a shot of two golf carts driving past each other at full-speed in the lobby of a corporate tower.

There’s a sense that Scardapane is hoping his screenplay’s parallel threads will organically knot into a noose à la “No Country for Old Men,” but it takes an entire hour of turgid setup before Alex and Serra finally cross paths, and the drama only frays apart even further when it tries to pretend these men anything to each other. “Memory is a motherfucker,” Serra reminds us, “and as for justice… it ain’t guaranteed.” But everyone in Campbell’s movie — from the director all the way down to his supporting cast — deserves better than this.

Open Road Films will release “Memory” in theaters on Friday, April 29.

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Memory Reviews

I do applaud Memory for accomplishing the impossible, which is to make you forget about virtually every aspect of the film by the time the lights go back up in the cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Mar 6, 2024

Memory seethes with evil deeds and evil-doers motivated by nothing more than greed and a lust for power. And for once, Neeson’s character isn’t a blinding ray of light purifying everything around him through sheer will power and clenched fists.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2022

An above-average Liam Neeson action piece...Aimed squarely at an adult audience that doesn't mind lots of plot talk, veteran director Martin Campbell gives th proceedings an usually jagged edge that lifts it above more formula-minded genre pieces.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 30, 2022

Personally I think what Liam Neeson should do is order a hit on the role of hit man and have a go at doing something different.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 18, 2022

[Memory] offers only predictable plotting and fitful thrills.

Full Review | Oct 7, 2022

Casino Royale director Martin Campbell makes great use of his locations, but the film is unlikely to linger long in your own memory.

Full Review | Oct 6, 2022

Props to Campbell and Neeson for trying to spice up the usual murderous melange, but <i>Memory</i> ends up just as forgettable as all those other flicks.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 16, 2022

You can pretty much forget about it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 23, 2022

... An empty, repetitive, and ultimately, forgettable. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 25, 2022

When it comes to his thriller outings, autopilot is the only speed he [Neeson] has.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 14, 2022

The unnecessarily convoluted psychological thriller “Memory” proves two things: 1) That Liam Neeson, when he wants to, can really act; and, 2) that Liam Neeson acting doesn’t mesh well with Liam Neeson being an action star.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 29, 2022

It is a Liam Neeson movie, no more no less - it is a Liam Neeson movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | May 22, 2022

... Lots of fights, lots of chases, lots of bullets, lots of death. Lots of lots. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | May 20, 2022

Although this new film is not exceptional, it has a few aces up its sleeve. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 19, 2022

Memory is ironically named, because it is yet another Liam Neeson movie that you will completely forget about as soon as you reach the parking lot.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 19, 2022

Memory isn't a Neeson action vehicle nor the sordid noir the original was, resulting in an acceptable yet inconsequential movie. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | May 17, 2022

Set to turn 70 in June, Liam Neeson is still on his game in this forgettable action thriller in which he plays a professional assassin suffering from the beginning stages of Alzheimer's/dementia.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | May 13, 2022

By no means is this thriller destined to become a classic, but it’s a satisfying indulgence.

Full Review | May 10, 2022

I wish I could forget it!

[Neeson's] charm is dulled by Lewis' failing mind and a script that neglects backstory and character development, all of which leave us feeling detached from his performance ... If given the choice to strike Memory from our own memory, we gladly would.

Full Review | May 9, 2022

Memory (I) (2022)

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• DVD & Streaming
• Drama , Thriller

Content Caution

In Theaters

• April 29, 2022
• Liam Neeson as Alex Lewis; Guy Pearce as Vincent Serra; Monica Bellucci as Davana Sealman; Ray Stevenson as Detective Danny Mora; Ray Fearon as Special Agent Gerald Nussbaum

Home Release Date

• June 21, 2022
• Martin Campbell

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• Briarcliff Entertainment

Movie Review

Where did he put the keys? They should be here under the windshield visor. That’s where he always leaves them. He wouldn’t have taken them into the hospital with him. Would he? No, no. That would be crazy. Sloppy. Bad, bad, bad.

They’re not on the seat. Not in his pants pocket. In his shirt! Yes, he put them in his scrubs’ top pocket. That’s right, he was masquerading as an orderly this time. Hospital. Scrubs. Right.

He almost forced himself to retrace his steps back through the lobby and into the room where he garroted his mark’s throat. Blood everywhere. People walking by. Bad. That would have been an amateur mistake. He never makes those. Or … he didn’t.

But things are getting worse.

Alex Lewis has long known that the decline would happen. Alzheimer’s disease has hit his whole family this way. His older brother is little more than an empty … uh, just empty at this point. For Alex, it’s only been little things: a key, a picture, a word, a note. That’s why he’s taken to writing instructions and reminders on his own arm. But for some jobs, like Alex’s, you can’t be plagued with memory loss or the threat of a rubbed-off message.

Killers can’t be losing track of things. Not even keys. In this line of work, it won’t get you fired. It’ll get you dead.

He even tried to quit. But his handler talked him out of it. “Men like us, don’t retire,” he told Alex. But what do you do when you can’t remember the address, the name, the … thingamajig any longer? What then?

Just one more job. Make it a big one. And then he’ll have enough cash to hide himself away somewhere, maybe. He’ll have to leave what’s left of his brother behind. But, hey, soon enough he’ll probably forget him anyway.

Just one last, uh … whatchamacallit. Then he’ll be fine.[ Note: Spoilers are contained in the following sections. ]

Positive Elements

Alex’s next job changes everything, as he’s called upon to kill a teen girl who had been dragged into child prostitution by sex trafficking ring. Obviously, that’s not good. Alex, however, can’t force himself to follow through. But the girl is brutally murdered anyway by someone else. Alex, feeling that he’s close to losing everything anyway, takes it upon himself to hunt down those calling the shots. He also helps an FBI agent named Vincent Serra. Vincent had gone out of his way to help protect the abused girl—who was left homeless after a police sting went wrong.

Both men attempt to bring the powerbrokers behind the much larger trafficking operation to justice. Of course, their methods for doing so are much different. “We all have to die, Vincent. What’s important is what we do before we go,” Alex tells the FBI agent.

Amid a tainted justice system, we see very few good men and women. Vincent is one of a rare breed here.

Spiritual Elements

A Mexican detective wears six St. Mary medals around his neck to remind him of abused and murdered young women that he’s encountered in the course of a human trafficking case.

Someone says a prayer in Spanish and ends it with an affirmative “Amen.”

Sexual Content

We see several different women wearing open shirts or low-cut tops. One of them is in a formfitting swimsuit. Part of Vincent’s investigation into a sexual trafficking ring involves him paying, supposedly, to have sex with a man’s teen daughter. The girl undresses to a lightweight shift, but then discovers that Vincent is wearing a wire when she pulls open his shirt.

Later we see snapshots of that same teen girl being slapped by her father and a short video of her being tossed onto a bed by a shirtless older man. Later still, we see that same man at a yacht party. He strips off his clothes and lays face down on a bed and orders a different teen girl to get undressed. (She’s stopped from doing so.) The party also features an onboard hot tub packed with young women in bikinis.

A wife suspects her husband of an affair and demands he wash off the woman’s perfume. A woman openly flirts with Alex at a bar and later—after Alex slaps down a drunken man rudely hitting on her—the two end up in bed together. We see her in a cleavage-baring slip the next morning.

Violent Content

There’s quite a bit of brawling and death-dealing in this R-rated pic. Alex pounds away at several men in and out of the course of his job. He also breaks a man’s nose with a rifle butt. He batters another guy in a public restroom, smashing the man through a porcelain toilet. He slaps a drunk around at a hotel bar, slamming his head into the bar.

In another scene, Alex beats a killer mercilessly, slamming the man’s head and face into a car mirror and through a window. He then ties the bloodied man into the car and detonates a bomb on the vehicle’s undercarriage. We see him shoot several people in the head, up close and at a distance. He rips open a man’s gushing neck with a wire garrote.

In turn, Alex is also beaten badly by an angry police officer in a police interview. And the guy notes that he’ll take all afternoon to beat a confession out of him.

We’re shown pictures of two young boys with bruises all over their backs. A young girl is battered. We see her later with a bloody bullet hole in her forehead. A woman’s throat is slashed open by a man behind her, and the camera watches her bleed out. An innocent woman is shot in the throat by a gunman. Alex is shot in the side at one point and his shirt soon becomes soaked with blood. He opens his shirt, revealing the wound, then pours vodka on it and lights it afire to cauterize the laceration.

Someone tells a story about his wife getting hit by a drunk driver who then backs up to kill her son so there wouldn’t be any witnesses. A police sniper kills an innocent man. A man is riddled with bullets from police fire. Vincent tumbles out a second story window with an armed man who dies in the fall.

Crude or Profane Language

Some 40 f-words and a dozen s-words are joined by multiple uses of “a–hole” and “h—.” God’s and Jesus’ names are misused seven times total (with God’s name being combined with “d–n” once).

Drug and Alcohol Content

Both Alex and Vincent drink pretty heavily in several separate scenes. We see others drinking champagne, wine and booze at bars and at a yacht party. Vincent and a fellow female agent get drunk at a bar. A man and woman drink shots of tequila. A murder victim’s wife is visibly drunk during a police interview.

Two different guys smoke cigarettes.

Alex regularly takes a prescription medication designed to help his Alzheimer’s disease symptoms. A wealthy woman receives injections of a drug from her private physician. And a doctor moves to give someone a lethal injection before he’s stopped. We’re told of a man who was high on meth.

Other Negative Elements

This film declares that criminal organizations have corrupted many in the high seats of power in the U.S. criminal justice system (and in Washington, D.C.). We see several different people in authority corrupted by money and promises of power. And in the end, it’s suggested that murder may be the only way to solve that systemic disease.

Some might winkingly say that Liam Neeson is yet again playing a hero who has something, ahem, taken from him: this time his memory.

But that’s not accurate, really. In part, that’s because Neeson initially plays a true villain here, albeit someone with a conscience that’s starting to awaken. So when he’s not killing people in the film Memory, he’s straining to give heavy handed aid to the real hero before he loses himself to Alzheimer’s.

We’re shown child sex trafficking and gory murder in a crime-riddled world rotted to the core by graft and power. And it’s all part and parcel of a badly broken and horribly corrupted U.S. justice system.

Does that make for a stark social commentary? Maybe. But it also leaves you stewing in a fairly dark worldview. And no amount of orange soda and Gummy bears will make that depressing and often foul viewpoint any sweeter.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Liam Neeson’s Taken era is memorable, but his new revenge film Memory isn’t

It’s the beginning of the end for one of Neeson’s particular set of skills

by Joshua Rivera

In retrospect, it’s remarkable how long a shadow Taken has cast. 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. Since then, too many action films starring Neeson have followed the steps of a familiar dance. 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 . Or his son is murdered ( Cold Pursuit ), he loses his job ( The Commuter ), or his family moves on without him ( Unknown ). 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. Memory is the latest of these films, and at first, it seems like it’s capable of subverting the formula. Then it slowly settles into tired mimicry.

Memory begins with a slight inversion of the Neeson Action Formula: This time, he’s one of the bad guys, kind of. Neeson plays Alex Lewis, a world-class assassin who takes jobs from some of the worst people in the world. 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. 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. His chief pursuer: FBI agent Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce), who’s after the same guys Alex is.

Memory ’s big swerve is that Alex is in a race against time. His health is deteriorating, and he’s suffering from memory loss, a harbinger of severe cognitive decline to come. 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.

On its own, Memory is a tepid thriller, competently made. 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 ). 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. 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.

Neeson reads as if he’s operating in the same mode of desperate competence he originally perfected in Taken . 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. Arguably, the film suffers from these two men being too good at their jobs, so one’s commitment overexposes the others’ shortcomings.

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. 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.

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. 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. 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 ) .

In many of these films, Neeson has been an unlikely avatar for white upper-class male rage. The appeal of his late-career turn as an action star is a direct result of the dissonance between his well-mannered demeanor and the violence these characters commit. His sonorous voice — which has led to a long voice-acting career and frequent casting in mentor-type roles — doesn’t belie the brutality these characters all eventually give way to. Under this reading, Neeson’s action movies are about the order whiteness and wealth has imposed on the world, the male sense of entitlement to that order, and the violence lurking beneath it, aimed at anyone who tries to disrupt it. It started with a film called Taken , and it’s no coincidence that most of these films are incited by a man feeling robbed.

This is curious, because these films are never about the theft of possessions — they’re about losing other people and losing status. The lives of his many characters’ loved ones are on the line, but often so is the sense of possession and control these men felt over their lives. They all have a sense of ownership extending over their family members, their jobs, and their right to cut out the middleman of law enforcement and kill people.

Memory is not Liam Neeson’s final action film, and it won’t be the one that defines him. But it’s worth considering as his tenure of mannered cinematic vengeance slowly comes to a close. In this case, it’s with a character suddenly attempting to atone for the man he’s been, right before his own history evaporates from his mind. It isn’t terribly convincing — even though Alex Lewis confesses that he’s been a bad guy, Memory is still built around the thrill of seeing that bad guy unleashed. There is little that suggests Alex Lewis is all that different from Bryan in the Taken movies, or any of Neeson’s other violent avatars. It’s worth remembering this era of cinema, and everything it says about specifically male fantasies and male rage. But it isn’t necessarily worth remembering Memory itself.

Memory opens in theaters on April 29.

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Liam Neeson does his best to make his latest film, 'Memory,' memorable. Guy Pearce helps

At first glance “Memory” seems like another Liam Neeson movie where his character has  a particular set of skills — ones that involve killing people, mostly.

Actually, it is that, but it’s also something different, and something more. Usually, Neeson plays a Good Man Pushed Too Far who has to go kill a bunch of commandos or whatever who have kidnapped a family member.

But this time he’s the bad guy. Kind of. A good bad guy. Good-ish. He plays Alex Lewis, a contract killer who is exceptionally good at his job (see particular set of skills, above). We learn this early on in a graphic display of his talents, the kind of scene that makes you squirm and groan out loud.

Some of us, anyway.

Liam Neeson is a killer with a moral code

But there’s a curveball in the story, which is based on the 2003 Belgian film “The Memory of a Killer.” Alex has memory loss, and is in what at first seems like early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (his brother lives in a care home with the same diagnosis). He’s starting to get a little sloppy, unable to remember the kind of details that keep you from getting caught or, worse, killed. Medication helps some at the moment but he knows which direction this is heading.

He tries to turn down one of those one last job gigs but ends up getting roped into it anyway. But it’s a two-person hit, and part of the deal requires something that will violate the moral code we didn’t know he had till now. But it does, and of course the people who hired him are not happy about that.

Once he learns what’s really going on — really ugly stuff involving undocumented children — Alex decides to take on the entire operation in violent acts of vengeance. This gets messy because the whole thing has tentacles that reach into the power centers of El Paso, Texas, which also happens to be his hometown. 

Meanwhile, Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce), an FBI agent, is trying to figure out who is killing all these people. He’s assisted by Linda Amistead (Taj Atwal), another FBI agent, and a Mexican officer, Hugo Marquez (Harold Torres). They’re not getting much help, either from local law enforcement or the feds.

At the center of things is Davana Sealman (Monica Bellucci), a real-estate titan in El Paso with some quirky ideas about aging. But it’s more complex than just that.

The characters are the most important thing here

Still, this isn’t a whodunit, because we know who’s doing it — Alex is. Vincent wants to catch him, of course, but the scales of justice don’t really seem to be tipping in the good guys’ favor.

What becomes important, then, are the character studies. It’s nice to see Neeson stretch more than he does in some of these kinds of films. It’s not exactly art-house fare, but Neeson in the right project is an outstanding actor. And it’s intriguing to see him straddle the line between good and evil, although how good someone who has spent his life killing people for money can be is a legitimate question.

It’s also interesting to see Pearce in another film about memory loss — he starred in one of the best, after all, “Memento.” He goes a little heavy on the down-home Texas accent, but he always does good work, so it’s not surprising that the best scenes are the ones in which he and Neeson interact.

Bellucci’s role is odd enough to merit attention but it’s not much more than that, which leaves her with less to do. The other characters are just stock portrayals, so much so they become almost cliche.

That’s too bad. “Memory” is a good-enough movie that could have been a lot better. Neeson is to thank for most of the good. Turns out he, like his characters, does have a particular set of skills. They involve acting.

'Memory' 3 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Cast: Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce, Monica Bellucci.

Rating:  Rated R for violence, some bloody images and language throughout.

Note: In theaters April 29.

Reach Goodykoontz at [email protected] . Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm . Twitter: @goodyk . Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter .

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Memory Reviews Are Online, Read What Critics Are Saying About The Liam Neeson Action Movie

Latest action thriller arrives in theaters on April 29.

Liam Neeson is set to star in Memory , an English-language remake of the Dutch film The Memory of a Killer (also known as The Alzheimer Case ), and it definitely sounds like something you'd find on the roster of upcoming Liam Neeson movies . The action thriller will see the actor as Alex Lewis, an expert assassin who refuses a job and must go on the hunt for those who want him dead. Making that quite a bit more complicated is the fact that Alex is afflicted with severe memory loss that affects his every move. 

Critics have had the opportunity to screen the film ahead of its April 29 release, and the reviews are in to help us decide if we’ll be scheduling a trip to the theater. The movie was directed by Martin Campbell , who is known for his work on the Bond films Goldeneye and Casino Royale . It also stars Guy Pearce, Monica Bellucci and Taj Atwal.

Let’s get right to the reviews, starting with CinemaBlend’s review of Memory . Our own Mike Reyes rates the movie 3 out of 5 stars, saying this was one of Liam Neeson’s better projects in recent years, allowing the actor to showcase his charm and relatability rather than leaning only on his acting chops: 

While it’s not as loaded with spectacle as films like The Ice Road or Honest Thief, Memory seems to have traded that in for a quieter, more introspective thriller. That trade off is more than welcome, with more of Liam Neeson’s acting skills being allowed to take center stage. It’s not a pulse pounding, thrill-a-minute adventure; but Martin Campbell’s film uses moments like those to enhance the slower, more methodical story at play.

At the time of this writing, there seems to only be a handful of reviews for Memory ; and the overall consensus is rather negative. With Liam Neeson's comments about an eventual action retirement apparently being written off as a joke, some critics might not be laughing. This is especially true with reactions like this next one from Movie Nation's Roger Moore :

The premise, that a not-remotely-young man suffering from the early stages of dementia could still overpower and outshoot one and all, perform self-surgery on a gunshot wound, sneak onto a yacht party and hit well-guarded targets, seems a stretch.

Making a Liam Neeson action movie is a certainly a fine line to walk, especially since there's so many of them to choose from. In such a well worn tradition, it's easy to accidentally fall into the pitfall of coming so close to parody that it robs a film like Memory of the serious energy it's attempting to embody. That leads us to Alonso Duralde from The Wrap 's review, which echoed that very sentiment thusly:

Campbell crafts a saga that provides unintentional hilarity until it takes a climactic turn into moral reprehensibility, and neither is a good look for a movie that, in April, isn't even the first Action-Neeson movie of 2022.

That's not to say that Memory doesn't seem to have anything new to add to the pot. Morris Yang's review at In Review Online seems to credit director Martin Campbell with contributing some fresh blood to the Neeson Action oeuvre. The problem is, there's not enough of that present in the mix, as Yang notes in his criticism: 

Sadly, Memory doesn't extend itself to such a conclusion, its embittered conceit superficially manifesting as one trick (or maybe two) up Campbells sleeve as he devotes all creative energy, instead, to shallow caricature of the deep state.

Our last review in this roundup comes from Derek Smith at Slant Magazine . Continuing the negative trend of reactions to Memory , Smith seems to think that the film is a little too memorable in terms of the beats it employs. As such, that colors Smith's overall view on the film in the following light:

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Martin Campbell's film never shakes off its familiarity, and as such seems destined to, well, be lost to public memory.

By now fans of Liam Neeson’s best movies have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the actor in these types of action movies, and it sounds like Memory adds even a little more to that in this psychological thriller. This isn’t the end for Neeson either, as the actor clarified that he isn’t planning to retire from the action genre after all. Memory is set to arrive in theaters on Friday, April 29, and be sure to check out our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to see what’s coming soon to a theater near you.

Heidi Venable is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend, a mom of two and a hard-core '90s kid. She started freelancing for CinemaBlend in 2020 and officially came on board in 2021. Her job entails writing news stories and TV reactions from some of her favorite prime-time shows like Grey's Anatomy and The Bachelor. She graduated from Louisiana Tech University with a degree in Journalism and worked in the newspaper industry for almost two decades in multiple roles including Sports Editor, Page Designer and Online Editor. Unprovoked, will quote Friends in any situation. Thrives on New Orleans Saints football, The West Wing and taco trucks.

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Memory (2022) Movie Explained: Ending & Themes Analysed

Living life at a dangerously high level of stealth, Alex Lewis follows the instruction to assassinate two targets. He tries his best to pull out of the situation when he learns that the person giving him the job is possibly watching his every move. While his trust levels are beginning to dwindle, Alex starts to understand the target by first meeting the client when things take a nasty turn from there. Alex’s values and principles remain an inner battle when he cannot commit to killing an assigned target. Suddenly, the momentum of the narrative shifts from him to a Mexican Police officer. Let us understand how an underdog rises from the shadows of a professional hitman, who is about to lose his memory and possibly bring an 11-month intense surveillance operation to near failure.

*Spoiler Alert*

Memory (2022) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

How does alex lewis convince the fbi task force of his true objective.

FBI Special Agent Gerald Nussbaum orchestrates a very intense operation with Special Agent Vincent Serra (portrayed by Guy Pearce ) going undercover to pull a teenager named Beatriz Leon out of a vicious sex racket. The rate of sex trafficking reaches a peak point of traffic between state lines with Beatriz’s father’s racket. The operation hangs on a dangerously loose thread as Vincent’s wire within his shirt comes to Beatriz’s notice. She screams to alert her father. When a struggle ensues and her father dies, the authorities put her in a detention center. Vincent protests strongly against this.

While Vincent manages to secure Beatriz’s safety in a police-sanctioned group home, Mauricio has assigned Alex with two targets and Beatriz is one of them. Following the strict rule of ‘ask nought and thou shalt only do’ attitude, Alex does his due diligence and traces Beatriz to the home and sees Vincent take her inside. With the first target taken care of, Beatriz is the only job to finish before he officially retires.

Special Agent Vincent Serra’s associate is Linda Amisted. Linda meets casually with Hugo Marquez, the special agent who has been suspended and asked to return to Mexico. Linda is eager to learn Spanish. On the other hand, Vincent is already fluent and can speak and understand the language when necessary. When Linda takes Hugo out for a drink with his sour disposition with the bureau, Hugo tells her a story that delivers chills to the bone. This story is the foundation for what takes place next.

Randy Sealman is tense as he has had sex with Beatriz, who is a minor, against her will and his mother is ready to do everything in her power to protect his status and image in the world. With arrangements made for him to leave the country, a piece of evidence regarding Randy’s crime is now in Alex’s possession. Alex investigates the flash drive that he procured from the first target Ellis Van Camp’s safe. Randy’s mother is Davana Sealman (portrayed by Monica Belluci), a wealthy real estate mogul in El Paso, Texas. With some time to spare, Alex takes some interest in understanding why Beatriz is a target. But as soon as he sees what’s on the flash drive, Alex’s blood begins to boil.

The only person alive is Davana Sealman. Alex is not going to hold back. When he breaks through all the security after repairing a dangerous bullet wound, Alex manages to get so close to Davana but can’t shoot her, making his arrest very easy. When the El Paso PD arrests him, Vincent insists on shifting him into the FBI’s custody since he is not well and his Alzheimer’s is beginning to come in full swing. His condition endangers the case and time is of the essence. The truth may disappear from under their nose. This is their only chance.

After taking the doctor hostage, Alex covers himself and the hostage as he steps out of the hospital with a white sheet covering them both. Everyone at the FBI is ready to shoot Alex dead but Alex’s tactic to cover them both misleads the FBI who end up shooting the hostage. Alex grabs this minute to get into the car with Alex and stutters out a memory he had of his bakery and how it is spelled. Vincent had been getting him to remember where he stored the flash drive. Finally, Vincent makes a breakthrough.

Memory (2022) Movie Ending Explained: How does Detective Hugo Marquez Deliver Justice?

When Hugo tells the story of 6 women who went mysteriously missing in the town he comes from, the Narcos that were involved insisted on hanging three women on his front window to make a point of dissent toward his silent investigation of all their nefarious activities. Ever since then, he stayed close to Linda and Vincent to gauge as much as he could to hunt for the person who treated Beatriz the way they did. With staying under the FBI radar, Hugo used this to his advantage and decided to rope in Linda towards the end.

Memory (2022) Movie Themes Explained:

Power abuse and sex trafficking.

In every character’s history, there seems to be a haunting story that comes to the surface. Severe abuse from their past comes to haunt them by their actions in the present or the generation that comes after them. Every character has experienced some sort of extreme physical trauma due to external factors or incidents, some dating back to their childhood. The consequences severely hurt their present.

Hugo Marquez was avenging the women in his town who sought justice when 13-year-old Emelia Martinez’s body was dumped. When Emelia’s relatives hung in front of Hugo’s office window, Hugo could not forget and marked the memory by wearing six pendants of Saint Ines on his neck. He would chant the Saint’s prayer as a coming of justice. When the moment came to strike, he would do so with full force. The film is a dangerous lick of power towards seeking vengeance in any way possible within the loopholes of the law, concealing the accused but letting the victims truly rest in peace.

Also, Read: Last Seen Alive (2022) Movie Ending Explained

Memory (2022) movie links – imdb memory (2022) movie cast – liam neeson, guy pearce, taj atwal, monica bellucci, where to watch memory, trending right now.

A storyteller and painter, Anushka is still looking for a silver lining in any situation and figuring out how innovative she can be to make the world a better place. She is charisma and mystery with a spark of genius. A true believer that film is this generation's strongest power yet, for change.

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The 10 Most Underrated Historical Movies, Ranked

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As popular as comic book films are right now, history can be just as exciting as a subject. While not every film that takes place in a historical era is necessarily based on a true story, events in real life can help inspire fictional stories. The best historical epics of all-time span the entire scope of human history. Even though some historical movies are more accurate than others , they still offer insight into what life was like during a different era of human history.

If a historical epic is done correctly, it can be a major financial success and take home major awards . Many of the Academy Award winners for Best Picture belong to the historical epic genre, including Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Braveheart, Titanic, and Gladiator . However, there are also many great historical epics that, ironically enough, have been lost to time. These films may not have won major awards or generated strong critical responses, but they’re certainly worth checking out for film buffs. Here are ten of the most underrated historical epics, ranked.

10 'The Name of the Rose' (1986)

Directed by jean-jacques annaud.

The Name of the Rose is a compelling mystery story set during the middle ages . Set in the early 14th century, the film follows the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville ( Sean Connery ) and his apprentice, Adso of Melk ( Christian Slater ), as they investigate a series of Satanic rituals and murders in a medieval Benedictine abbey.

The mystery itself provokes interesting questions about loyalty, faith, and organized religion ; both William and Adso are forced to question whether they can belong to a group that holds such dark secrets. Connery does a great job at showing how William finds fulfillment in his mission, and why he feels that he must pass along his knowledge to Adso. The film also features a delightfully evil performance from the great F. Murray Abraham as Bernard Gui, a papal inquisitor who comes into conflict with William.

Watch on Prime Video

9 'Michael Collins' (1996)

Directed by neil jordan.

Although Liam Neeson has been more focused on making action films recently , it’s easy to forget that he got his start in historical epics. Neeson plays the titular hero in Michael Collins , a revolutionary hero who fought for Ireland’s independence from Britain during the 20th Century. The great Alan Rickman co-stars as Collins’ ally, the Irish politician Éamon de Valera. Key events in Ireland’s history, such as the Easter Uprising and the Anglo-Irish Treaty, are seen through Collins’ point-of-view.

Director Neil Jordan does a great job at depicting why Collins and his allies feel that their revolution is justified. Beyond his political motivations, Collins feels that it is his destiny to see Ireland develop its own identity. Neeson’s extraordinary performance and the Oscar-nominated score by composer Elliot Goldenthal make Michael Collins well worth watching for film fans and history buffs alike.

Watch on Tubi

8 'The Immigrant' (2013)

Directed by james gray.

Films have the power to generate empathy for their characters, and shed light on disturbing issues within history. James Gray ’s powerful historical epic The Immigrant examines the challenges that European immigrants faced when journeying to the United States and being accepted as citizens. The film follows the Polish sisters Ewa ( Marion Cotillard ) and Magda ( Angela Sarafyan ) as they venture to New York City and meet the enigmatic man Bruno ( Jaoquin Phoenix ), who attempts to sell them into prostitution.

Whether it's a massive science fiction epic like Ad Astra or an intimate historical tale like The Immigrant , Gray has an unparalleled ability to show human frailty. He succeeds in generating empathy for Ewa as she begins to slowly realize the plight she’s gotten herself into. Phoenix also deserves credit for creating a realistic villain; the plausibility of the situation actually makes it more terrifying.

The Immigrant

In 1921, an innocent immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island.

12 'Oppenheimer' Historical Figures, Ranked by Accuracy

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7 'Lady Macbeth' (2016)

Directed by william oldroyd.

Many great filmmakers have told t heir version of William Shakepserare ’s classic tragedy Macbeth , including Joel Coen, Orson Welles, Roman Polanski, and Akira Kurosawa . However, William Oldroyd ’s 2016 film Lady Macbeth managed to revamp “The Bard’s” most famous tragedy from a feminist point-of-view. Set in the early 19th century in England, the film follows the young woman Katherine ( Florence Pugh ) as she seeks independence amidst her loveless marriage to the wealthy man Alexander Lester ( Paul Hilton ).

While Lady Macbeth features terrific production design that feels representative of the era, it's a much more subversive film than some viewers may expect. Oldroyd employs dark humor as Katherine tests her husband’s patience to determine what she can get away with. It’s one of Pugh’s best performances because of how she conveys Katherine’s emotions; Katherine isn’t verbose, but she has a way of making her opinions clear.

6 'Lawless' (2012)

Directed by john hillcoat.

Lawless takes a historical look at the gangster genre with its family-centric crime story. Set in the 1930s during the prohibition era, Lawless explores the early bootlegging trade . The film follows the brothers Forrest ( Tom Hardy) , Howard ( Jason Clarke ), and Jack Bondurant ( Shia LaBeouf ) as their Virginian moonshine business puts them in conflict with the ruthless local lawman Special Deputy Charlie Rakes ( Guy Pearce ).

Director John Hillcoat does a great job at now sensationalizing this era in history. The Bondurant brothers have a difficult life, and they see their b ootlegging business as only a means to provide for themselves . Although the film primarily focuses on how each of the brothers plays a different role in the operation, a tender romantic subplot between Forrest and the local dancer Maggie ( Jessica Chastain ) adds a touch of sensitivity to this dark crime story.

Set in Depression-era Franklin County, Virginia, a trio of bootlegging brothers are threatened by a new special deputy and other authorities angling for a cut of their profits.

5 'First Knight' (1995)

Directed by jerry zucker.

Arthurian legends have inspired many great films , including Camelot, The Sword in the Stone, Excalibur, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail just to name a few. Jerry Zucker ’s 1995 action-adventure film First Knight stands out because of its focus on the love triangle that split Camelot apart . The film follows a young Guinevere ( Julia Ormond ) as her romance with King Arthur (Sean Connery) is threatened when she begins to fall in love with the charismatic swordsman Lancelot ( Richard Gere ).

Gere does a great job at playing a snarky, womanizing version of Lancelot that has more in common with Han Solo than the previous version of the famous knight. Although the love triangle does become a little melodramatic at times, First Knight features some epic action sequences once Lancelot crosses swords with the evil warrior Maleagant (the late great Ben Cross ).

First Knight

Watch on Apple TV

Steven Spielberg’s Best Historical Movies, Ranked

He's an avid history student — and it shows

4 'Centurion' (2010)

Directed by neil marshall.

Although Zack Snyder ’s 300 inspired a new wave of sword and sandals epics , Neil Marshall ’s 2010 action thriller Centurion is just as worthy of admiration. Set during the Roman Empire’s invasion of Britain, the film follows the centurion Quintus Dias ( Michael Fassbender ) as he attempts to lead a battalion of soldiers to safety when they are hunted down by Pict warriors. Dias’ allies include the legionaries Macros ( Noel Clarke), Brick ( Liam Cunningham ), Bothos ( David Morrissey ), Thax ( JJ Feild ), and the cook Tarak ( Riz Ahmed ).

The Pict warriors are so ruthless that they almost feel like slasher villains; Marshall clearly draws inspiration from the horror genre. The film does a great job at showing the honorable practices that defined Roman warriors , and how their code of chivalry differentiated them from their enemies. It proved to be a breakout film for both Fassbender and Ahmed before they become more established leading men.

A splinter group of Roman soldiers fight for their lives behind enemy lines after their legion is devastated in a guerrilla attack.

3 'The King' (2019)

Directed by david michod.

David Michod ’s 2019 Netflix historical epic The King takes an interesting approach to Shakespeare’s work, as it draws inspiration from both Henry IV and Henry V . The film follows a young English King Hal ( Timothee Chalamet ) as he wages war against France in the aftermath of his father’s ( Ben Mendeloshn ) death. Although Hal is aided by his long-time friend Falstaff ( Joel Edgerton ), he suspects that his inner circle of allies is not being completely honest with him.

The King does a great job at showing how Hal’s innocence is taken advantage of by his war-mongering allies . Chalamet shows how Hal’s impulsive desire to get revenge leads him to make short-sighted decisions in the heat of combat. Robert Pattinson also appears in a ridiculously entertaining performance as The Dauphin, a haughty French leader who comes into conflict with Hal.

Watch On Netflix

2 'Rob Roy' (1995)

Directed by michael claton-jones.

Rob Roy is a thrilling revenge epic that features another great depiction of a historical leader from Liam Neeson. Neeson stars as the titular 18th-century Scottish clan chief, who wages war against the English crown after his wife Mary ( Jessica Lange ) is assaulted by the ruthless aristocrat Archibald Cunningham ( Tim Roth ). Roth’s terrific performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Rob Roy may have been overshadowed because it was released the same year as Braveheart , another historical epic about a proud Scotsman’s revenge against England . Nonetheless, the conflict between Roth and Neeson, the epic sword fights, the excellent score by Carter Burwell , and the moments of romantic integrity make Rob Roy just as worthy of recommendation. If Braveheart was more focused on the larger conflict between England and Scotland, Rob Roy deals with a smaller, more personal conflict.

Rob Roy (1995)

1 'calvary' (2014), directed by john michael mcdonagh.

John Michael McDonagh ’s 2014 thriller Calvary tackles difficult conversations about religion through the perspective of a character who has dedicated his life to the faith. The film follows the priest Father James ( Brendan Gleeson in one of his best performances ) after an unseen man in confession threatens to kill him. James is forced to continue being a spiritual advisor to his community as he awaits his demise.

McDonagh explores how difficult it can be to justify one’s faith when faced with organized religion’s structural issues and the crimes committed by its leaders. Although these discussions are thought-provoking, and at times disturbing, the mystery surrounding James’ would-be assailant and his motivations gives Calvary a propulsive sense of energy. While it is not an easy film to watch, McDonagh’s dark sense of humor and Gleeson’s mature performance make it an unforgettable one.

NEXT: Alan Rickman’s Clever Trick Saved ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’

Jenna Ortega responds to backlash to her controversial age-gap movie with Martin Freeman: 'It's supposed to be awful at times'

• Jenna Ortega addressed criticism over the 31-year age gap with "Miller's Girl" costar Martin Freeman.
• The two actors play a student and teacher in an inappropriate relationship.
• "It's not supposed to be a comfortable movie. It's supposed to be awful at times," Ortega said.

Jenna Ortega has spoken out after critics expressed discomfort over the age gap between her and her costar Martin Freeman in the controversial film " Miller's Girl ."

"It's not supposed to be a comfortable movie. It's supposed to be awful at times," Ortega, 21, told Vanity Fair in a cover story published on Tuesday. "Art isn't always meant to be pleasant or happy, and everyone skips off into the sunset at the end. We all have fucked-up experiences at one point or another."

"Miller's Girl," released earlier this year, stars Ortega as Cairo Sweet, an 18-year-old high school student who starts an inappropriate relationship with her creative writing teacher, Jonathan Miller, played by the 52-year-old Freeman.

At the suggestion of her friend, Cairo blurs the lines between her and Mr. Miller as she seduces him. Cairo then uses their dynamic as inspiration for her midterm assignment, which ends up being a short story about a sexual relationship between a student and a teacher. Later in the film, Mr. Miller masturbates while reading Cairo's erotic short story, imagining him and her as the two main characters.

"Miller's Girl" was poorly received, landing a 29% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes . Critics called the movie shallow and " vapid ," while audiences criticized the 31-year age gap between Ortega and Freeman.

Related stories

Freeman defended the film in April, calling it "grown-up and nuanced" in an interview with The Times of London .

"It's not saying, 'Isn't this great,'" the actor said, adding that stories about tough matter can become "tainted by association."

"And that's a shame. Are we gonna have a go at Liam Neeson for being in a film about the Holocaust?" Freeman said, referring to Neeson's role in Steven Spielberg's 1993 movie " Schindler's List ."

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3 action movies on Amazon Prime Video you need to watch in August

When it comes to action movies, there are so many classics that fans love to watch and re-watch, again and again. Then, there are new ones, sometimes remakes, that might catch your attention. The best action movies, no matter when they were introduced, feature actors who have become deeply tied to the genre.

Rocky III (1982)

Payback (1999), non-stop (2014).

We’re here to help you find ones you’ll want to watch (or, more likely, re-watch) by highlighting three action movies on Amazon Prime Video you need to watch in August that come from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2010s. With Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, and Liam Neeson leading each of these movies, you can’t go wrong. Plus, don’t worry because all three are available with a standard Amazon Prime subscription or standalone Amazon Prime Video subscription, no add-on channels needed.

Rocky Balboa became an icon when Sylvester Stallone first brought the character to life on screen in 1976’s Rocky . He returned in 1979 for Rocky II then again in 1982 for this, the third film in the franchise. In Rocky III , Balboa (Stallone) looks to his old rival Apollo Creed (the late Carl Weathers) to help him train to fight a formidable new opponent: Clubber Lang (Mr. T).

While Rocky III received mixed reviews, there’s no debating the intense action sequences, set to a perfect soundtrack that includes the iconic theme song Eye of the Tiger , which earned a Best Original Song Academy Award nomination. In the many decades since the movie came out, the underdog, supreme perseverance story in Rocky III has been viewed with a different lens and garnered a strong cult following.

Stream Rocky III on Amazon Prime Video.

At the height of his movie career, Mel Gibson starred in this neo-noir action thriller about Porter (Gibson), a former U.S. Marine who also happens to work as a career thief. After being shot and left for dead, he vows to get revenge on his former crime partner Val (Gregg Henry), who has betrayed him.

Payback follows Porter’s exciting, dangerous, and action-packed journey to find Val and exact not only vengeance but also get back stolen money. At every corner, however, the plot thickens, and Porter finds himself battling all types of nefarious characters in exciting action scenes that will get your blood pumping. Also starring Maria Bello, Lucy Liu, and Kris Kristofferson, Payback is a perfect vehicle for Gibson’s talents and proves he’s worthy of the title “action movie star.”

Stream Payback  on Amazon Prime Video.

The story of a plane hijacking has been told before, time and time again, in both movies and on TV. But Non-Stop puts an original twist on the plot. Bill Marks ( Liam Neeson in action hero mode ) is a Federal Air Marshal who learns that someone has secretly hijacked the plane he’s on. They’re demanding a large sum of money, and if their demands are not met, they’ll kill someone every 20 minutes until the funds have been deposited. Soon, however, the script flips when a series of events lead others to believe that Marks is the perpetrator, not someone trying to stop them.

An intense story that takes place almost entirely on a plane, Neeson brings his subtle yet menacing energy to the role. He’s desperate to save everyone but also to prove his innocence as manufactured evidence continues to mount against him. Non-Stop is a whodunit story told in the span of under two hours that will have you guessing and at the edge of your seat right to the very end. The supporting cast is tremendous, too, including Julianne Moore, Michelle Dockery, Corey Stoll, Lupita Nyong’o, and Corey Hawkins.

Stream Non-Stop on Amazon Prime Video.

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August is typically a slow time at the multiplex, but Hollywood is working in overdrive this year. In addition to popular holdovers like Deadpool & Wolverine and Twisters, there three new movies hitting the multiplex this weekend: Borderlands, an adaptation of the hit video game franchise from director Eli Roth; the romantic drama It Ends with Us with Blake Lively; and the creepy horror movie Cuckoo.

That's a lot of choices, but if you don't feel like going out this weekend, there are plenty of options at home, too. HBO and its streaming service Max have a bevy of movies -- some famous, some less so --- that are just waiting to be streamed. The following three selections are all underrated in one way or another, and will help you pass the time just as well as what's showing on the big screen. Hollywood Homicide (2003)

This weekend brings a bounty of new films to the multiplex: Cuckoo, the strange new thriller starring Euphoria's Hunter Schafer; It Ends with Us, the controversial drama with Blake Lively; and the sci-fi romp Borderlands, which is shaping up to be one of the worst films of the year.

For those who don't want to venture out to see a good movie, don't fret as there's plenty to watch on Netflix. No, we're not talking about that Jack Reacher sequel, which is oddly the most popular movie on Netflix right now. Instead, we're recommending three underrated movies that are worth watching. One is a drama starring Hugh Jackman, another is a pitch-black comedy with Brad Pitt, and the last film is a campy disaster movie with an all-star cast. The Son (2022)

Ryan Reynolds continues to dominate the box office with Deadpool & Wolverine, which will cross the $1 billion threshold fairly soon. However, Reynolds' biggest opposition this weekend comes from his wife, Blake Lively, and her new film, It Ends with Us. The romantic drama is based on Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel from 2016.

While Reynolds and Lively dominate theaters, audiences can choose from thousands of movie options on FAST services. Supported by ads, FAST services do not cost any money, which is a fair trade-off for a free service. This weekend, consider watching these three movies. Our picks include a misunderstood sci-fi adventure, a teen romance, and a football underdog story. Waterworld (1995)