Product Description

His memory impaired by Alzheimer's, veteran assassin Angelo Ledda (Jan Decleir) is appalled to discover his intended target is a 12-year-old girl. Refusing to kill her, Ledda breaks his contract, only to have his boss carry out the hit instead. Incensed, Ledda vows vengeance and sets out to find the man who ordered the child's death. Systematically wiping out middlemen and go-betweens, Ledda leaves a blood trail that is followed by Chief Inspector Vincke (Koen De Bouw), a police detective who's desperate to learn what links the dead girl with the most powerful men in Belgium. And so, with the cops one step behind him and his memory fading fast, Ledda finds himself in a race against time as he tries to avenge a child whose face he can no longer recall.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48399 in DVD
• Brand: Unknown
• Released on: 2006-02-21
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Dutch, French
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 123 minutes

Customer Reviews

The Memory of a Killer
This intelligent, distinctive nail-biter from Belgian director Eric Van Looy puts a fresh twist on the revenge saga with its parallel storylines and a mentally ailing hired killer, superbly played by Decleir, who transforms into a kind of moral hero. As he scales the heights of power looking for the child killer, Angelo's skills and sense of justice remain intact, but with his failing memory, he often lapses into a disorienting haze. By the end, all the pieces click together like a Rubik's puzzle. Bristling with suspense and visual energy, "Killer" is a highly original thriller that will leave a lasting impression.

Fascinating convergence of thriller and psychological drama
Set in Belgium, this unusual thriller has as its protagonist an anti-hero--a 57-year old hitman who's beginning to experience symptoms of Alzheimer's. His brother, older and residing in a nursing home, has an advanced form of the same disease. But the hitman, Angelo Ledda, has enough of his wits about him to know what's going on; he does have some slips in memory from time to time, though, and these throw him off, to some extent at least, in the context of remembering what he's just done or where he just was--or who he might have just executed.

The acting is superior; this in combination with a smart storyline with sharp dialogue makes for an engrossing two hours. As is true of many modern noir tales, this one involves corruption in high places, as a result of which murders ensue--some committed by Ledda, some not.

The pacing here is pretty much flawless. The back and forth between the cops, the hitman, and the evil higher-up guys is spot on. This is a great companion piece to the recent French policier "36 Quai des Orfevres" directed by Olivier Marechal which, unfortunately, is not available on DVD here in the US, but is available in a non-region 1 European DVD release.

Highly recommended.

One of the best movies I've seen this year.
The Memory of a Killer (Erik van Looy, 2003)

How is it that, until I watched this movie, I had never heard the name Jef Geeraerts, upon whose book this movie is based? There is a crime going on here somewhere, and I mean to find it. If the book is a tenth as good as the film, the English-speaking world has been kept in the dark about one of the best crime writers going today. Yeah, I realize that every once in a while mediocre (or just plain bad) novels get made into great movies, but still, I'm playing the odds on this one. Most movies aren't as good as the books on which they're based, and The Memory of a Killer is a very good movie.

Angelo Ledda (the great Jan Decleir) is a French contract killer who is sent to Belgium to take out a minor official after retrieving a certain metal box from him. Once he has completed that assignment, his contact, Seynaeve (Gene Bervoets) orders him out on a related contract: the murder of a child prostitute, Bieke Cuypers (Laurien Van den Broeck). When Ledda discovers Cuypers' age, he refuses to take the contract, saying no one in his profession will kill a child. That night, on the news, he hears she's been shot, and sets out to find out who was behind the murder and why. Meanwhile, Eric Vincke (Koen de Bouw), a Detective Chief Inspector who was assigned to the Cuypers case, is also trying to figure out who killed Bieke Cuypers. When their paths cross, the game of cat and mouse begins-- will Ledda get to each person higher on the food chain before Vincke? And does Vincke really want to stop him? Complicating matters is the fact that Ledda is slowly sliding into Alzheimer's-related dementia.

There are a great many things to love about The Memory of a Killer, but all discussion of how good the film is must start with Jan Decleir, who quite simply owns this role. Decleir is wonderful as Ledda, the aging killer with a conscience. Everything about him is calm, precise, understated... unless it's not, of course. When Ledda's facade shows signs of wear and tear, that's when you can see how excellent a performance this is. Opposite Decleir you have de Bouw, the harried detective, who's not only chasing a killer who's baiting him, but is encountering resistance from places where it doesn't make sense, not least of all his partner. de Bouw's vision of Vincke as the guy who just puts his head down and bulls his way through, damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead, is just as capable as Decleir's vision of Ledda. This would be a great movie if it were just the two of them sitting in an interview room its entire length (viz. Closetland). But there is a plot to go along with it, and that a police procedural can be fresh and inventive in an age of endless Law and Order clones is impressive in itself. That screenwriter Carl Joos drops the biggest plot twist in such a way that you may not even notice how you've been fooled by this script through its entire length is just brilliant.

I'm not sure I can recommend this movie highly enough. If you haven't yet had the chance to see it, do so at your earliest convenience. **** ½