Good but not Great

Rating: 7/10 (27 August 2013)

This is my first review here. I just watched Memento last night and was looking at other reviews. I might not have wrote my own but there are way to many people just over rating this movie. Yes was a it good to watch yea. Unique sort of. I know this film was made a while back but the backward story telling or puzzle story telling has been done before. Many have sighted Pulp Fiction. This is just a story telling tool and whether it has been done before or not is not the point. Was it done well. Yes. It also suited the getting into the POV of the main characters head. For this the movie was very well done.
As far as acting it is hard to grade for me. Short scenes leave little chance to truly show off what talent may or may not be there. Over all you do get a sense of the chars but its really just a superficial view of them. I think this was done on purpose by the film maker to hide what comes next. Did the actors fit their roles yes but they fit their roles for the moment. The moment of each scene. You see what they are like in that moment in time before who they really are is revealed. This works for the first half the movie and once you figure out things they seem more like actors just saying lines.
The true trick or gimmick is not the backward story telling but the fact that every scene... wait spoiler... is built upon illusions and lies. From the very first scenes on is all a series of lies and illusions. This is what actually is very well done and different, because even in lies there is truth. However by the time you get half way through the movie you already figured out where these lies will lead and how they lead back to the first scene. To me there was no major plot twist it was just now following the trail to see how it plays out. This to me is were the film begins to lag and no longer holds any suspense.
Two thoughts on this. One is that really in the end the actual story was a weak plot. There was nothing to the story but questions. This could be what the film maker wanted. What is real what is not. Who is not telling the truth who is. Or maybe they are all telling a bit of the truth. Maybe its Leonard who is not facing the truth. That the truth is to hard to face so he creates his own. Or that the world is nothing but the lies which we want to believe. Maybe a mix of it all. OK so it makes you think but I was thinking this half way through the movie. We do get hints that maybe the Leonard and Sammy are one but nothings really answered. Leonard manipulates his world by what he wants to believe by writing it down. Others manipulate him into believing things are not what they seem.
It is the ending which I believe is the let down. We are filled with not only the suppose twist with Teddy and what he tells Leonard but we are left with who is telling the truth. All we are left with is that Leonard actually doesn't want to know the truth. This leaves the viewer sitting through 2 hours of film that from the very start the main char is seeking the truth that he never really wants to know in the end. He killed the only one who perhaps knew the truth at the start of the movie. How ironic.
One more note. My opinion is the black and white scenes are Leonard's lies he is creating to hide what happened and the color scenes are the lies or half truths the world is showing him. Otherwise he remembers his lies or what he wants to and the color scenes is what the world unveils to him. He reconstructs his world with what he writes down. Unique, different but I would not say brilliant. Good beginning but fades and becomes predictable in the end. You realize the question the film maker is asking and that he isn't going to tell you half way through the film. Writing for first half 10 second half 6. Plot 7. Did it keep me on the edge. 5 Overall I give it a 7 because I liked it. Its is a movie you have to see once just not the type I would see again. To me that is what makes a movie great is wanting to see it again.