‘Memory’ Review: Hit-Man Movie Remake Is a Retread of Familiar Liam Neeson Roles
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film CriticThe 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 or 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 which have been unexpectedly honed into this incredibly specific, incredibly lethal persona.
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