Interesting film, but unsatisfying conclusion

Rating: 5/10 (5 July 2003)

There are spoilers in this review.
This is your chance to see Guy Pearce as a bleached-blonde SoCal Calvin Klein model. Not only that, but he is also half-naked during the entire film as the camera pans up and down his body. Guy in the shower, Guy on the bed, Guy getting dressed. Like it or not, you're going to see Guy Pearce's body, dammit.
This film is strongly reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode where everything goes backward, the one where Sue Ellen Mischke gets married in India. I wonder if the screenwriter was inspired by that show.
Anyway, Pearce plays a man who has no short-term memory, so he has to write down everything. This is a thinking person's film, which cleverly challenges your own short-term memory as you try to remember how each vignette ties into the previous one. It works, but after awhile it becomes formulaic.
Joe Pantoliano's character is utterly unconvincing as a police officer. He is such a simpering milquetoast, and his friendship with Guy is so weak, that you wonder about his motivation for helping Guy. It is never clearly demonstrated.
Major spoiler alert in this paragraph. The problem I have with the ending is that it is so unsatisfying. It does not clearly demonstrate Guy's motivation for `finding new challenges'. His writing down of Teddy's license plate is so contrived and unlikely, and largely unexplained, that the whole film falls apart. It is as though Leonard is inventing challenges just to keep himself busy; it is such an empty, unsatisfying conclusion that one wonders if there are a group of screenwriters somewhere whose job it is to create silly movie endings, such as those in `The Ring' and `Donnie Darko'. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
On IMDB's scale, this movie deserves a five.