An Interesting But Eventually Tiresome Conceit

Rating: 1/10 (26 January 2002)

The backwards technique of Pinter's "Betrayal" gets the noire treatment in "Memento." With a better script this could have been something. As it is, an interesting conceit eventually grows tiresome, and the long paragraphs of clumsy exposition in the last scene betrays the fact that something is not quite working structurally. Still the film has a very good performance by Guy Pearce, and Joe Pantoliano is for once not the big hambone he usually is. A cold work that never touches the emotions, it's still worth a screening for genre fans. But those who go back for a second look will find, surprisingly, that the film tends to diminish with each viewing rather than deepen.