Nothing much to say - I just want to add another voice to the general chorus of praise.

Rating: 9/10 (20 November 2001)

The year 2000 produced, so far as I can tell, just three flawless gems; this is one of them. The narrative device is the kind of flashy gimmick writers dream about being able to use properly: the story is divided into lots and lots of very very small chapters - each chapter connecting directly to the next - and we are given these chapters backwards, last to first. (Yes, I know it's not as classically simple as that - there's also the black-and-white footage. But this serves the function of expository narrative; it isn't a chapter in its own right.) It's amazing that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the umpteen transitions back in time works dramatically, and that the story makes far more sense this way, and is easier to follow, than it would told chronologically. So perfectly cast is the narrative that it's impossible to tell which idea came first, the technical challenge of telling the story backwards, or the exceedingly clever story that justifies this conceit.
We open watching a killing in an abandoned building and the puzzle is how we got there. That's ALL the puzzle is. The film won't even tell us, until the end (beginning) whether this is a whodunnit, a Thorndyke-like police procedural, a gestalt-shift exercise, or something else. The protagonist, who has no long-term memory, is precisely as lost as we are; the only thread that feels secure to him when he tugs on it is the knowledge that he's out to avenge the death of his wife - and he seeks revenge mainly because he's left himself little notes he's left for telling him to. So good to see a Hollywood movie willing to make fun of the very idea of revenge, although this is a minor virtue of a very rich work.