Big Picture Big Sound

A Plum Role for Plummer

Atom Egoyan's latest is a senior citizen version of a Charles Bronson revenge flick, with Nazis being substituted for street criminals. A nice little twist at the end turns everything upside down, in a fun way, even if fun isn't a word that necessarily fits the tone of "Remember".

In a nursing home, Zev (Christopher Plummer) has recently lost his wife to cancer, although his oncoming dementia often makes him forget that she is no longer with him. His friend, Max (Martin Landau), also lives at the nursing home and is confined to a wheelchair.

Max takes Zev aside and reminds him of a promise that Zev made to his wife and Max that would automatically go into effect upon the passing of Zev's wife. Max gives a letter to Zev detailing a plan the two of them hatched earlier. Both men are survivors of Auschwitz and the plan calls for Zev to track down the Nazi who slaughtered all of the members of both of their families. They know the name the Nazi has taken, but four men have that name and it is up to Zev to track the real man down and put a bullet in his brain.

Zev hits the road, and as you might imagine, a hit man with dementia is no sure thing to be successful. Moments that might otherwise be comical are anything but because of the gravity of Zev's mission. His forgetfulness only adds to the tension as we keep hoping he doesn't blunder before completing his task.

As you would expect, things don't always go as planned and in one confrontation we are reminded of an excruciating part of "The Boys From Brazil" where someone tracked down Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi torturer.

Egoyan does a great job unveiling it all. We slowly learn what is going on that we have not previously been told in the nursing home. At least we believe we are learning even as we get thrown constant little curves. Each time we go back to square one, but in the final confrontation, we learn the truth, and it's a plot twist worthy of Hitchcock and I certainly never saw it coming. Plummer is the engine that keeps it all humming, along with Egoyan's direction. Unlike many films, you will remember this one for a while.