Memory (2022) Movie Ending Explained & Themes Analysed: Director Martin Campbell brings an action-packed film with a linear narrative shooting bullets from the hip and moving fast. Liam Neeson brings the heat with his familiar raspy tone marking his powerful presence in every frame. If the film had no visuals and only his voice, you would do well to quickly pick up that the film’s story borders heavy action and rescue attempts of a damsel in distress. Liam Neeson’s character encompasses his ability to recall memories that make or break the case he was assigned.
Living life at a dangerously high level of stealth, Alex Lewis follows the instruction to assassinate two targets. He tries his best to pull out of the situation when he learns that the person giving him the job is possibly watching his every move. While his trust levels are beginning to dwindle, Alex starts to understand the target by first meeting the client when things take a nasty turn from there. Alex’s values and principles remain an inner battle when he cannot commit to killing an assigned target. Suddenly, the momentum of the narrative shifts from him to a Mexican Police officer. Let us understand how an underdog rises from the shadows of a professional hitman, who is about to lose his memory and possibly bring an 11-month intense surveillance operation to near failure.
*Spoiler Alert*
Memory (2022) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
How does Alex Lewis Convince The FBI Task Force Of His True Objective?
The film hits the ground running with the lead character Alex Lewis making his first kill swiftly in a hospital. At the onset of the narrative, we see a high-functioning hitman experience his first instance of a mistake. With this questionable pause in the lead character’s story, the film moves quickly to introduce us to what Alex must confront when his best friend named Mauricio hands him a certain amount for the assassination of two targets.
FBI Special Agent Gerald Nussbaum orchestrates a very intense operation with Special Agent Vincent Serra (portrayed by Guy Pearce) going undercover to pull a teenager named Beatriz Leon out of a vicious sex racket. The rate of sex trafficking reaches a peak point of traffic between state lines with Beatriz’s father’s racket. The operation hangs on a dangerously loose thread as Vincent’s wire within his shirt comes to Beatriz’s notice. She screams to alert her father. When a struggle ensues and her father dies, the authorities put her in a detention center. Vincent protests strongly against this.
With this operation gone wrong, Nussbaum is under pressure. He suspends a Mexican police officer named Hugo Marquez, who was part of the operation. Feeling strongly against the bureau’s decision, Marquez begins to pack his bags and is almost ready for the airport.
While Vincent manages to secure Beatriz’s safety in a police-sanctioned group home, Mauricio has assigned Alex with two targets and Beatriz is one of them. Following the strict rule of ‘ask nought and thou shalt only do’ attitude, Alex does his due diligence and traces Beatriz to the home and sees Vincent take her inside. With the first target taken care of, Beatriz is the only job to finish before he officially retires.
That same night, Alex goes to the group home, his gun raised. But when the light reaches her face, she wakes up to tell him she won’t say anything. He sees that she is only a teenager. Something shifts. He backs out of the room. Beatriz is stunned after meeting a moment of her afterlife. Alex summons the client William Borden and challenges him with an ultimatum that no matter what the girl should stay alive.
Special Agent Vincent Serra’s associate is Linda Amisted. Linda meets casually with Hugo Marquez, the special agent who has been suspended and asked to return to Mexico. Linda is eager to learn Spanish. On the other hand, Vincent is already fluent and can speak and understand the language when necessary. When Linda takes Hugo out for a drink with his sour disposition with the bureau, Hugo tells her a story that delivers chills to the bone. This story is the foundation for what takes place next.
The film’s narrative turns viciously when news channels show a bullet in Beatriz’s head in the same bed that Alex left her in. Alex suddenly learns that Mauricio is hunting him when he reaches the parking lot. He redeems himself and kills Mauricio. This makes things harder but sets Alex on fire because now there is no turning back. After the news informs everyone that Beatriz is dead, Marquez decides to stay back and goes straight to Vincent and tells him he can’t sit idle until justice has been carried out.
Randy Sealman is tense as he has had sex with Beatriz, who is a minor, against her will and his mother is ready to do everything in her power to protect his status and image in the world. With arrangements made for him to leave the country, a piece of evidence regarding Randy’s crime is now in Alex’s possession. Alex investigates the flash drive that he procured from the first target Ellis Van Camp’s safe. Randy’s mother is Davana Sealman (portrayed by Monica Belluci), a wealthy real estate mogul in El Paso, Texas. With some time to spare, Alex takes some interest in understanding why Beatriz is a target. But as soon as he sees what’s on the flash drive, Alex’s blood begins to boil.
With Vincent spearheading the investigation into Beatriz’s death, the dead bodies that Alex leaves behind lead them to think that there are possibly two shooters. When Alex reaches out to Vincent, Vincent believes he has the upper hand and can arrest Alex. But it never is that simple. Alex tries to convince Vincent that there is more to the story when Vincent intercepts him after he shoots Randy dead on a yacht during a party. Vincent chases Alex and Alex’s memory loss is beginning to take its toll. Marquez sees Vincent talking to him and shoots Alex in the stomach while he is trying to drive away.
The only person alive is Davana Sealman. Alex is not going to hold back. When he breaks through all the security after repairing a dangerous bullet wound, Alex manages to get so close to Davana but can’t shoot her, making his arrest very easy. When the El Paso PD arrests him, Vincent insists on shifting him into the FBI’s custody since he is not well and his Alzheimer’s is beginning to come in full swing. His condition endangers the case and time is of the essence. The truth may disappear from under their nose. This is their only chance.
When Vincent manages to secure Alex’s transfer into his custody, Alex mentions he has stored away evidence that can put Davana Sealman away for life. But he cannot recollect where he safely stored it. While Alex is in hospital, Davana begins to bribe her doctor to inject Alex with something lethal and kill him since he is in a vulnerable position. She cannot stand the idea that her son is dead and wishes to avenge him. The game of cat and mouse reaches its peak when the doctor is about to inject Alex, who reaches a point of lucidity and his lethal defenses kick in to take him hostage.
After taking the doctor hostage, Alex covers himself and the hostage as he steps out of the hospital with a white sheet covering them both. Everyone at the FBI is ready to shoot Alex dead but Alex’s tactic to cover them both misleads the FBI who end up shooting the hostage. Alex grabs this minute to get into the car with Alex and stutters out a memory he had of his bakery and how it is spelled. Vincent had been getting him to remember where he stored the flash drive. Finally, Vincent makes a breakthrough.
Memory (2022) Movie Ending Explained: How does Detective Hugo Marquez Deliver Justice?
Detective Hugo Marquez and Special Agent Linda Amistead form a close bond since they both follow the same principles of following a no-nonsense strategy and getting hold of the criminal by Machiavellian methods. With high-status individuals stalling or letting their egos intervene, the path to justice seemed to fade making them both restless. They say that the method to deliver justice is not always a straight road. Linda and Hugo plot carefully how to avenge Beatriz.
When Hugo tells the story of 6 women who went mysteriously missing in the town he comes from, the Narcos that were involved insisted on hanging three women on his front window to make a point of dissent toward his silent investigation of all their nefarious activities. Ever since then, he stayed close to Linda and Vincent to gauge as much as he could to hunt for the person who treated Beatriz the way they did. With staying under the FBI radar, Hugo used this to his advantage and decided to rope in Linda towards the end.
When Linda decides to take Vincent out for drinks after he loses his cool with the District Attorney for dismissing the evidence that Alex remembered before being shot dead, Hugo uses this opportunity to go fully covered in black and slit Davana Sealman’s throat. While Beatriz now rests easily in her grave, the News Channel lets Linda and Vincent know that Davana Sealman is dead. Linda recites the prayer of Saint Ines, the one that Hugo taught her and Vincent Serra learns this death was not the doing of a nobody. His alibi is rock solid with the aid and accomplice of an FBI Agent. Possibly now gone rogue.
Memory (2022) Movie Themes Explained:
Power Abuse and Sex Trafficking
In every character’s history, there seems to be a haunting story that comes to the surface. Severe abuse from their past comes to haunt them by their actions in the present or the generation that comes after them. Every character has experienced some sort of extreme physical trauma due to external factors or incidents, some dating back to their childhood. The consequences severely hurt their present.
When we learn of Alex Lewis’s past, we see it relates directly to Beatriz’s current life in the present. Alex came from a severely abusive father to the extent of he was willing to burn the Bakery down along with his father to end the abuse. Beatriz was a survivor of her father’s abusive racket. While Davana Sealman played the role of a protective mother, she encouraged the typical male mindset of patriarchy with blatant abuse of power and the law of the land.
Hugo Marquez was avenging the women in his town who sought justice when 13-year-old Emelia Martinez’s body was dumped. When Emelia’s relatives hung in front of Hugo’s office window, Hugo could not forget and marked the memory by wearing six pendants of Saint Ines on his neck. He would chant the Saint’s prayer as a coming of justice. When the moment came to strike, he would do so with full force. The film is a dangerous lick of power towards seeking vengeance in any way possible within the loopholes of the law, concealing the accused but letting the victims truly rest in peace.
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