Lest we forget...

Rating: Null/10 (1 May 2001)

There are so many attempts on this Board at unravelling the plot of this film and I think the answer lies in understanding the truth of what happens at the start of the story, -which is the end of the film.
Here is my interpretation of just this particular section:
*****WARNING: SPOILER ALERT*****
Leonard is an Insurance Investigator. Two drug addicts murder Leonard's wife. He manages to shoot one, but the other gets away. In the process, Leonard ends up with brain damage causing the loss of his short-term memory.
Teddy, a bent Cop, eventually tracks the killer down and Leonard subsequently murders him as an act of revenge. Because he knows that Leonard will not remember any of this, Teddy takes a Polaroid of Leonard while he's still covered in the guy's blood. However, this serves no purpose, because Leonard still doesn't remember this act of revenge. Because of his impairment, the process of bereavement cannot unfold and therefore everyday that Leonard awakes, the need for enacting revenge on his wife's killer is as powerful as the last. Teddy uses Leonard's hunger for vengeance for his own ends, and Leonard ends up killing an innocent man. When he eventually finds out, he is mad at Teddy and decides to mark him down as the killer instead by giving himself cryptic clues to Teddy's pseudo-identity as the assassin. Thereby giving Leonard fuel to pour on his burning desire for retribution.
Frustratingly, there is also a possibility that Leonard himself killed his wife with an insulin overdose, and then used his memory loss to his advantage by transposing this deed onto another person named Sammy Jankis. (Teddy tells Leonard at the end of the film, that Jankis didn't have a wife!) So where otherwise did this memory come from?
The whole storyline evolves from this beginning, but because the tale is filmed in reverse, the above becomes the climax rather than the commencement. It is always refreshing to see an intelligent film. My local cinema wouldn't touch it, preferring instead to show such gems as `Dude Have You Seen My Car' Another movie which features memory loss  but mainly brain cell loss in its audience.
Memento: 9/10