CU Film Critic takes on "Memento."

Rating: Null/10 (17 October 2001)

`Along Came a Spider,' last week's commode-worthy flick, had a production budget of well over 100 million big'uns. `Memento,' which opened in Boulder this week, was made for a 12,500th of that amount. That's right. Eight thousand dollars. The beauty of this is that `Memento' turned out to be a masterpiece among the no-account strips of celluloid passing for quality film that are currently in theaters. Memento, a favorite at last year's Sundance Film Festival which has finally seen a wide US release, opens immediately with a man being shot and killed. We are then shown, in a series of flashbacks, what has just transpired. In effect, we are shown the end at the beginning, and director Christopher Nolan (`Following') takes us into a time warp where, at the end of the film, we finally see the whole picture for what it is. Paul Harvey would be proud.
Guy Pearce, aside from looking a lot like what Val Kilmer and Brad Pitt would end up with if they had a kid, stars as Leonard Shelby. Leonard suffers from short-term memory-loss, and is unable to keep a new memory for more than five minutes or so. Hence the flashbacks. We immediately discover that Leonard's wife has been murdered by `John G.,' and that Leonard is seeking vengeance. The trouble, however, is that Leonard's condition forces him to rely on scribbled notes, tattooed messages covering his body, and his Polaroid camera to remind him where he is and what he is trying to accomplish.
This is brilliant stuff. It's not necessarily a new concept; a similar idea was explored in the 1997 German film `Winterschlaefer.' The real beauty of this film is in its execution. We're given just enough information that we always lose sight of where we are at the most crucial moment. We're pulled out of the story countless times and brought into an unfamiliar place; or at least we think it's unfamiliar. Watching this movie is like HAVING short-term memory loss!
Aside from having an insanely ingenious foundation, we're given a lot to chew on while the film zigs and zags in its attempts to shake our inner detectives. Director Nolan gives us some great colorful characters, notably Teddy and Natalie (respectively, Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss, co-stars in `The Matrix'), who have both our sympathy and loathing through most of the film. I can't say enough about this movie. I don't know if I've seen this good a film since `American Beauty.' Nolan's to-the-point style of directing gets rid of all the abstract fluff that's become the ensign of low-budget indy film. `Memento' may be low-budget, but it's not cheap.
My favorite moment injects some laughs; at one point Leonard (and the audience) is brought back from a lapse into the middle of a life-or-death chase scene, and he can't remember whether he's doing the chasing or being chased. However, most of the laughs come mostly at your own expense when you realize you've completely been hoodwinked on more than one occasion.
`Memento' is the best film currently in theaters. That's not saying much, so I'll follow it up by saying that it's the best film any theater has hosted this year. The movie was originaly released in 2000, but is just now making its way out of the major cities- don't let the opportunity to see this one go by. `Memento' gets an `A.'