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    Remember

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    On November 15th I decided to catch up on my movie theatre watching and went for a double feature concluding with “Remember”. The first film I saw was really good, and I mean excellent. Probably one of the best I’d seen this year. I left the theatre pleased, wrote an outline of my review and got ready to check out this picture. I had no idea walking in that I would like this film even more, more than any movie I’ve seen since the summer. Atom Egoyan and his crew literally made me scream out in excitement and squirm in terror. This is a bombshell of a film.

    Christopher Plummer plays Zev, an elderly Jewish man sent on a mission. Despite the fact that he’s suffering from dementia (meaning he wakes up every day looking for his dead wife) he has a job to do, as instructed by his friend Max (Martin Landau) Zev and Max both suffered through the Holocaust in Auschwitz and saw their families murdered. With Max in a wheelchair, Zev is on the hunt for a chief Nazi officer escaped Germany and has been living in North America under an assumed name. There are 4 men who could be the killer and Zev must travel to find, and gun down the right one.

    I have seen a growing trend recently. With people living longer, I see more movies featuring older actors in roles that aren’t necessarily grandfather-like and I’m loving it. You think the stakes are high when a muscle-bound hero is the one that has to stop the bad guy? It’s nothing compared to an octogenarian having to crack the case or come to the rescue. There are so many things that could go wrong and a seemingly endless amount of obstacles in the way of Zev here. He’s like the hero from “Memento” in that he has to check his list of tasks (take the bus to X city, check into Y hotel, take a cab to this house, interrogate the man, report, etc.) to figure out what he’s done already and what’s next on his agenda every time he wakes up. Adding to the tension is the fact that his mission isn’t an easy one. Tracking somebody down, interrogating them and assassinating them would be tricky for a spring chicken like me. For Zev? Keeping a Glock steady is already a herculean task! Then there’s the fact that people are after him, since he’s essentially escaping from the nursing home he lives in to do this task. I can’t think of anyone I’d want to see get their just deserts more than a repugnant excuse for a human being like a former death camp officer, but how on earth will our hero manage with these kinds of odds?

    There are many instances where Zev is threatened either by the people he is investigating or random security checks and the tension is unbearable. There’s also the off chance that he’s going to end up accidentally killing the wrong person, or even himself because of the dementia he is suffering from. I found myself wrenching my hands in nervousness praying that everything was going to play out correctly. Over and over, “Remember” generated the kind of reactions I pray for every time I see a thriller.

    Not only do we have the makings of one of the best movies of the year because of the script and the story, there’s an extra element here that you don’t get in most revenge films. It’s the performances. This is the reason why a cast of elderly men and women so much. Obviously Christopher Plummer is capable of memorizing lines, moving around freely and delivering them. Clearly, Martin Landau is still fairly spry. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be making movies, they would be retired. On top of performances in the traditional sense where emotions and personalities are conveyed through the actors’ voices and their faces, we also have physical performances as they pretend to be infirm men whose last chance at peace… is cold-blooded revenge. Make no mistake; it’s this or nothing at this point. Dementia is nothing to be sneezed at and despite a fervor that burns with a white-hot intensity, Max would find it extremely difficult to convince anybody else to track down the Nazi officer. Just when you think it couldn’t get more intense, you realize that there’s a whole new layer of pressure on Zev and on his ally who must help coordinate his actions from afar.

    I remember when the first “Paranormal Activity” was being released and the trailers showed test audiences climbing over each other in terror as a way to entice you to go see it. I wish they had set up a camera in my theatre because it would have been quite the show. If you had seen me shaking in a mix of anxiety and unbridled excitement, or throwing my hands up in the air when something went right for Zev you wouldn’t be reading this review anymore, you’d be at the theatre watching the film right now (assuming it’s out in your region already, this Canadian film is only scheduled for a U. S. release in January!) “Remember” is one of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences I’ve had in the theatre this year, I absolutely loved it. (Theatrical version on the big screen, November 12, 2015)

    10
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    adamwatchesmovies@  16.11.2015 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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