MEMENTO (2000) *1/2 Not the wildly original masterpiece promised by reviewers, but nausea inducing, if that's what you're after. Designed to burrow into your subconscious, but there are probably more healthy things to have residing there. Kurt Vonnegut once said, "you don't have to know how to stop the bombs to warn people that they're coming." True enough, but it's a statement best given limited application. Here, I'm afraid, Christopher Nolan is far more disturbing than illuminating or entertaining. Yes, there is a fragility to human existence; yes, humans can be terribly cruel; and yes, anyone with any imagination at all can concoct a litany of horrific "what ifs" even without turning on the television. So Guy Pearce and Joe Pantoliano's convincing performances are, for me, worse than a waste of time. Nolan's clever use of time dislocation to bring the viewer into the world of Pearce is effective, but it's not all that much of a variation on what Bryan Singer did, to much greater effect, in The Usual Suspects. Not without genuine insight on the psychology of selective memory, but a relatively superficial insight that is negatively charged and mutated by the story line, and then amplified and magnified through technique. Not worth the trouble, just eat bad fish.
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