MEMORY (2022)

MEMORY stars Liam Neeson as a hitman who goes on a rampage after a human trafficking ring kills a young teenage girl from Mexico that he and an FBI agent tried to protect after the FBI killed the girl’s abusive father. MEMORY is a riveting thriller, but there’s lots of strong foul language, some extreme gun violence and some moral relativism when one of the cops working with the FBI engages in an act of vigilante justice at the end.

The movie begins with Liam Neeson’s hitman character, Alex Lewis, finishes a job in San Diego. Using a code, he texts his partner, a hitman who lives in Mexico City, that the job is done. What he doesn’t tell anyone, however, is that he’s suffering from Alzheimer’s and had to write down the hotel and room number where the victim was staying on his arm.

Cut to FBI Agent Vincent Serra engaged in a sting operation with a Mexican detective, Hugo Martinez, to bring down a human trafficker who’s trafficking his own daughter, a young teenage girl named Beatriz. The father gets wise, learns that Vincent is wearing a wire, grabs Beatriz, and threatens to kill her. Vincent distracts the father and makes a flying tackle. However, the two men plunge through a window, and the father fatally cushions Vincent’s fall by hitting a car below first.

Vincent’s boss and the Mexican cop are upset that they can’t interrogate the father to lead them to the trafficking ring’s leaders. The boss decides to stop working with the Mexican officials, but Hugo decides to stick around for a few days. Meanwhile, Vincent visits Beatriz at the immigration detention facility and manages to get her placed in a group home run by the FBI witness protection program.

However, in Mexico City, Alex’s hitman partner, Mauricio, gives Alex the assignment to kill Beatriz, but Alex refuses to kill a child and tells Mauricio he has to retire. Mauricio refuses to let Alex out of the assignment, but when Alex manages to infiltrate the house where Beatriz is sleeping, he can’t do it.

Alex returns to his hotel where he hooks up with a woman in the hotel bar. While they’re sleeping in his room, he has a nightmare about Beatriz being killed and calls the local FBI to warn them about Beatriz. However, Vincent and his FBI partner are too late to save Beatriz, and Alex appears at the group home to see paramedics place Beatriz’s body in the Coroner’s van.

Alex returns to his hotel room to tell the lady there to leave and never come back to that hotel. Out in the parking garage, however, Alex notices that someone has placed a bomb under the car. His friend Mauricio suddenly appears and starts shooting at him. A gunfight breaks out when the woman from the hotel room suddenly appears telling Alex he forgot his pills. Alex tries to save the woman, but she gets shot dead in the crossfire. Alex manages to sneak up on Mauricio and knock him out. Cut to Alex putting the woman’s body in the trunk of his rental car with Mauricio tied to the steering wheel. He says goodbye to Mauricio, then hits the detonator, causing the car to explode.

Alex starts a rampage to kill the people behind the trafficking ring who had Beatriz murdered. Meanwhile, Vincent and the FBI, and the Mexican cop, try to follow Alex’s trail of destruction and get to the culprits before Alex does.

MEMORY is a riveting, well-directed thriller. It’s one of Liam Neeson’s better movies as an action star. Also, Guy Pearce does an excellent job as the compassionate, heroic FBI agent. He’s the movie’s moral center.

That said, MEMORY has lots of strong foul language, including excessive “f” words and some strong profanities. The movie also has lots of strong violence, including some extremely bloody gun violence. In one scene, Neeson has to take care of a bullet wound in his stomach. Finally, there’s some moral relativism at the end of MEMORY involving vigilante justice by a police officer. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.