The memory of a serial killer:movie review

This movie was originaly made in 2003 in the Flemish belgian versian, called: De zaak Altzheimer, or in the english version in europe: the Altzheimer case. This is a great belgian thriller with an incredible set of actors.

In 2005 this Belgian movie, directed by Eric Van Looy, came out in the U.S, and truthfully, we Belgians where surprised it did great in the movie theaters. This movie was made with only a small budget, yet many people say, that it has everything like a great hollywood production. Certainly when you know how low the budget was. let me just say, that the cost of making the movie was cheaper than the salary of a hollywood actor. Possibly even to hollywood standards the budget would be histerical, but it's the quality that mathers right?

The plot: A hit man founds out his next target is a 12 year old girl, he doesn't wan't to take the job, no, instead, he will turn on his employer, while at the same time, the man is fighting against his altzheimer decease, and he needs to do his stuff, before he forgets why he is doing it all.

The movie, based on the novel of the famous flemish writer Jef Geeraerts, tells the story of 2 police officers, detective Eric Vincke(played by Koen De Bouw) and detective Freddy Verstuyft(played by Werner de Smedt), and offcourse the hitman Angelo Ledda (played by the flemish top actor Jan decleir). Jan decleir is by the way an actor who previously won 2 acadamy awards for best foreign picture. karakter(character) and Antonia's line. With a cast this professional, director Eric Van Looy knew it would be easy to work with, and directed them just slightly, in order for the actors to get more room to play, the actors on their turn, where more free to play their roles and you'll notice while watching the movie.

Here's the story

Angelo Ledda, an older hit man, wants to retire, but when his boss, calls him down for one last hit, before he can retire, the story starts. Ledda is send to Antwerp, belgium where he originaly came from, with the duty to make a hit on a city official, after forcing the man to give him something out of his safe. But when he realizes that his 2th target is a 12 year old girl, Ledda refuses to do the job,the girl gets killed anyway, and so Ledda want's to start a mission to found out who wanted the girl dead and why.

Problem is Angelo Ledda is suffering with a fast growing form of Altzheimer, and he is afraid he will forget what his mission is, before it is completed. So he seeks the attention of detective Vincke and starts to give him leads and cleus, so that the cop, Vincke can take out the killers, before ledda completely looses his memory. Vincke at that time is already investigating the murder on this little girl, and was already determend to find the killer of the girl.

Vincke is convinced that Ledda will lead him to bigger fish, and for the time being he is willing to play along with ledda, to get those, but on the other hand, his collegue Verstuyft, wants to take Ledda down, dead or alive it doesn't mather to him. Ledda's trail starts leading to dead officials and rich people. Now a bunch of police officers from a rival unit are blocking Vincke and Freddy's every move, and Leddo's memory is rapidly fading. Vincke has to found out who Ledda's next target is going to be.

The acting performances of Decleir and De Bouw where very strong, specially Decleir, captures the character of this man perfectly. De Bouw who's playing Vincke plays some kind of stereotype character of a good cop who lost his beloved wife. Unlike many actors, He performs his role with subtle grace and studied perfection, conveying his character's myriad conflicted emotions with the tiniest twitch of a facial muscle. This Actor is a nice example of the fact that there are still great actors in the world far away from the hollywood spotlights.

Van Looy uses this incredible split up flashback technique to put us in Leddo's head as he struggles with his Alzheimer’s, a technique that's really affecting during a scene where Leddo sees a television news report about the young 12 year old girl he refused to kill being murdered, and thinks for that he might have actually killer her himself and then forgotten that he did it. As the movie continues, Leddo becomes more and more reckless, taking risks that don't always pay off. Leddo and Vincke are both such sympathetic characters, the audience is simultaneously rooting for Leddo to take the bad guys down, and for Vincke to figure out Leddo's clues and find him.

The memory of a serial killer, is an edgy movie, a stay in your seat thriller, with great acting performances, great locations, and to a lot of people, even americans, the fact that the location isn't in America for ones makes this a great addition, This is a Belgian production, played in belgium, in Antwerp, one of the largest city's of europe, and Brussels.

The only thing that i can say is that the movie could have been about 20 minutes shorter

overall a great movie. my score 9/10 (for americans) A-