The “Memento”-esque crime thriller that is “Memory of a Killer,” from Flemish director Erik Van Looy, won five Belgian Oscars, and certainly should be embraced by fans of the genre in the U.S. who have had little to chew their fingernails over this year. Veteran actor Jan Decleir is superb as Angelo Ledda, an elderly international hitman who’s been hired to take out two people in Antwerp. Unbeknownst to his employers, Ledda has Alzheimer’s disease and his condition is deteriorating rapidly. Though his mind is failing, the old man manages to carry out the first part of the contract. But after discovering that the second mark is a child prostitute, he refuses to complete the job, telling his employers that nobody in his business would kill an innocent child. He’s wrong, however, and following the girl’s murder and an attempt on his own life, Ledda seeks vengeance — systematically taking out the players in a high-powered political cabal.
Van Looy keeps the film moving at a nimble clip, and his characters feel like living, breathing people as opposed to the slapdash caricatures found so often in noirish thrillers. And while Decleir is the best of the bunch, the rest of the cast is quite impressive, especially Koen De Bouw and Werner De Smedt as the intrepid young detectives on Ledda’s trail. (Rated R for violence, sexuality and nudity. Running time: 120 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 26, 2005. Read the original PDF.