ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602260028
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 7 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
"Unforgettable" is pretty much a B movie.
Make that a C movie. Or a C- movie.
The funny thing about this director, John Dahl, who made "Red Rock West" and "The Last Seduction," is that his movies make more sense when the production value is lower. The earlier movies had a kind of tawdry charm and a wicked sense of humor, just the thing to induce the correct neo-noir experience.
But this movie, about a medical examiner (Ray Liotta) obsessed with finding his wife's killer, is so slick it makes the silliness of the story that much more apparent.
Okay, not silliness. Absurdity. Utter unbelievability.
The good Dr. Krane, you see, happens to attend the lecture of scientist Martha Briggs (Linda Fiorentino), who has figured out how to transfer memory. Krane figures her serum is just the thing he needs to find out who did his wife's murder, for which he was accused but acquitted. Briggs won't try it on him, so Krane - who picks locks with his scalpel set like he's been doing it all his life - steals some from her lab, shoots himself up and trips out on a series of confusing memories of his wife's death.
He gets a lead early on, but the man he chases into a church is shot dead by police before Krane can put the question to him.
This is maybe 20 minutes into this two-hour-plus movie, and that's just one of many problems: The movie builds up the early head of steam but has to let it all go to get on with the complicated, ridiculous story.
Krane runs around stealing brain fluid from people whose memories he needs with the sweaty desperation of a junkie. Unfortunately, the story requires that Fiorentino follow him around like a bad case of the flu. And she just can't pull off the brilliant scientist thing. In a different context, the performance might have been fine, but Dahl plays it straight. So there's Fiorentino, sticking her microcassette recorder in Liotta's face and saying things like, "1:40 p.m., subjects seems irritable, annoyed and tense."
To make matters worse, I picked out the killer in the movie's first scene and I'm usually terrible at that sort of thing. It's as if the movie offers a subliminal hint in those first few minutes.
And the hint is: Get out now, while the getting's good.
UNFORGETTABLE * 1/2
An MGM release showing at Valley View Cinema. 140 min. Rated R for excessive violence and foul language.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB