Any info on this movie will spoil the experience, just go with as little info as possible

Rating: Null/10 (16 April 2001)

I saw this movie knowing almost nothing about it. I knew it was told backwards, that's about it.
Hence, I would suggest, to the extent possible, anyone who likes really good movies to see it, and to go in about as much in the dark as possible. That being said, I'd consider anything from about this point on to be a spoiler.
SPOILER for those that like caps.
Yeah, filming a movie in reverse is kind of a gimmick, it certainly was in the Seinfeld episode that used it, though that certainly wasn't the first time it's been employed as a story telling device.
The reason its much more than a gimmick in this film is the basic premise of short term memory loss. We, as viewers, are kind of stuck from the outset in the same way the lead character is stuck. He knows what just happened, but nothing much before that. So as the movie builds backward so to speak, we may learn where this character is going, but we, only through sparse clues provided, figure out where he's been.
Though I think the plot was interesting, if a bit fragmented, it really only serves to heap a lot of deep ideas, one on top of another. The character at one point ponders how long its been since he lost his short term memory--since the last thing he can remember is his wife's death, rather than what happened just moments before. In that regard, the parallel question for the character is whether his long term memories fade? They don't seem to--he seems to have them as vividly as if they indeed happened just the previous day. Also, the character is severely limited--because he can't obtain any new memories, he by nature can't change, or can only do so in limited ways. In that way, he's almost totally the reverse of Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day" who changes himself in all kinds of ways as time basically goes in a loop (piano, ice sculpture, etc).
This is another reason why the plot device works--we don't see any character development in any forward sense, because the situations don't change him; really the plot going backward helps peel layers off of who Leonard Shelby really is and how he got to the beginning of the movie.
More spoilers ahead: There are some interesting ideas--as in the way that he believes he can learn some new things--through habit and routine he can manage his life, but then, how does he remember that he knows that? And then there are some touching moments as in when the character remembers his wife--the last real memory being her side of the bed being cold.
And some funny ones as well--as in when the character can't remember in the middle of an action chase whether he's the one doing the chasing or being chased.
There are some very good elements to the movie--as in the very short clues at the very end of the film, some only flash on the screen--Shelby and his wife laying in bed most importantly. Not to say its perfect, the plot is basically explained in a few minutes by Teddy near the end of the movie, the beginning of the plot progression--but as we all know, he's someone who lies.