Perfection in film.

Rating: 10/10 (5 February 2004)

Leonard Shelby suffers from a brain injury he received when he tried to stop a pair of burglars that had broken into his house and raped and killed his wife one fateful night. He cannot form new memories. He can remember everything clearly before the accident, but nothing afterwards. He must figure out a way to live his life with this condition and to catch the person or persons responsible. Can he do it, and if he does, how will he remember it?
First off, I would like to say that Memento is probably my favorite movie of all time as of yet, and not without reason. It's probably the movie with the most reply value that I can even imagine. Every time I watch it, I notice something new or come up with a new theory on things. The acting is as good as it gets and all the characters were cast perfectly. Guy Pearce is one of my favorite actors simply because of this movie and L.A. Confidential alone. Joe P. plays the perfect good cop/bad cop and Carrie Ann Moss is very convincing as the revenge riddled, manipulative woman.

Everything about Memento is flawless. The script, acting, dialog, camera work, editing, direction, story.everything.
This is as good as it gets folks..to such a degree that I seriously almost feel sorry for the people who don't get this movie or understand it, as they're missing something so spectacular. Some people have even gone as far to say that the movie contains plot holes. I beg to differ and must presume that these such persons aren't too quick. There's a method to the madness. Of course the movie has holes in it which open up almost endless possibilities, but that is a reflection of the fact that Leonard did not have all the details either. His file for instance. We are left with fragments of "memories" just like Leonard, and are forced to actually think and try to figure it out with him. Some people don't like to think I guess, or are completely incapable. Maybe it would have been better for them if Lawrence Fishburne rambled on about all of the details for about 45 minutes with sunglasses on, all while pooching his lips out. The fact that we don't know all of the details and that the story's origin and ending do have infinite possibilities is one of the reasons that I love this film so much and is why it's so great. Brilliant, simply brilliant. Had it been done accidentally or out of tactlessness then I would think the exact opposite, but that is certainly not the case here.
Sometimes a `gimmick', like filming a movie to be watched out of chronological order, can be pretentious and unnecessary, as we see in movies like 21 Grams. However, Memento's story was meant to be told this way. It's another technique that adds to the audience's lack of knowledge about what has happened in the past, exactly like Leonard's. These techniques all contribute to getting the audience to care about Leonard, and it works. Although the film is viewed backwards, all of the scenes slightly overlap each other so it's easy to follow. The director has used two different types of scenes here as well. We have the color, reverse sequence scenes that show what Leonard has been through.and we have seemingly chronological black and white scenes in which we are given tidbits of information about Leonard and his condition as he talks to an anonymous person on the telephone. Truly masterful work. This movie will leave you thinking about it for a very long time. I still like to think about the possibilities...
Flawless. 10.5/10  people should be strapped in a chair and hooked to a plethysmograph and forced to watch it over and over and over..