I watched this as a part of the annual Fantastic Film Festival in Stuttgart and was more than positively surprised by what I saw! A European thriller, that is really good and shouldn't be afraid of any comparisons with a Hollywood movie! This is top notch, in style, suspense and humor! If you let yourself into the story, which might be a bit hard to follow for some, then you will be treated a movie that is one of the best European films the past years. Unfortunately it didn't really had the word-of-mouth recommendation that it deserved, that's why this remains a little known gem. Watch it, if you can ...

In Hollywood history you find great cop classics like Maltese Falcon and Dirty Harry. Hollywood substituted substance with CGI years ago, and we've been stuck with poorly written, bloody, explosion strewn messes ever since. Myself, being a fan of the 1940 type of film with true acting and writing, finds today's Hollywood efforts sadly lacking.I have turned to euro films to find true acting and well written stories. In Memory of a Killer, there is a modern day classic, a must have for fans of the Bogart type movies with feel and substance.The movie opens with something that makes most of us sick to our stomach-a father selling his twelve year old daughter for sexual purposes. The Police bust in (Thank God) and set forth a chain of events that take us deep into the heart of darkness of man complicated by bureaucratic bumbling. The buddy cops can be a cliché in most films, but the buddy cops in this movie never sink into the stupidness found in the cop film genre.The Angelo Ledda character (the assassin) is John Wayne type in his take no prisoners approach in his crusade to wipe out a protected group who have been preying on children. We almost cheer as he kills each one in cold blood.A truly excellent film not only worth the price of rental, but also of owning.

I'm sorry to say this myself, but I'm not that keen on Belgium movies. I love the chocolate and the fries, and yeah we've got great beer as well. But Belgian movies aren't really my thing...Was I surprised.They were playing this movie in a Belgian hotel in Switserland, so me and my brother went to see it. I was surprised, very surprised by the intensity of this movie. You get all caught up in the story, wondering what plot twist they'll come up with next.Jan Decleir has proved earlier that he's a fantastic actor, with many talent. Those who watched 'Daens' know what I mean. Never before have I seen a man get so caught up in the act, could bring his character to life in such a convincing way.Decleir has certainly made his way into my list of favorite actors, together with Robin Williams and Jack Nicholson. In case you haven't seen this one, see it.

'De Zaak Alzheimer' or 'The Alzheimer Case' or the US titled 'The Memory of a Killer' is a stunningly well written, directed, acted, and photographed film from Belgium. Though termed by director Erik Van Looy as a 'police thriller', this gripping drama is so much more: this is the story of organized crime, of the men and women who fight crime, and of a man afflicted with progressive Alzheimer's Disease which alters his entire view of his life of crime. It is a police thriller with a soul and as such is one of the finest films of this genre this viewer has ever seen.Angelo Ledda (the enormously gifted Jan Decleir) is a hit man sent to Antwerp to eliminate some important 'clients'. He is hesitant to take on the job as he understands that his mind is being slowly altered by the effects of Alzheimer's disease. But go he must and after his first successful 'kill', he is ordered to kill a young girl, an order he cannot follow, and an order, which with his failing memory and abilities acknowledged, he decides to turn on his employers and rid the world of those big crime magnates. The Flemish police, lead by two superb minds - Vincke (Koen De Bouw) and Verstuyft (Werner De Smedt) - follow the path of corpses that lay in Ledda's wake of destroying the important heads of crime in Antwerp. Ledda becomes strangely connected and committed to the two police, in reality helping them by remote stance do their job, but the movie is a cat and mouse chase between the police and Ledda and one whose ending, though somewhat predictable, manages to tear at the heart of the audience as the unwinding of Ledda's mind by Alzheimer's disease results in a metamorphosis of a killer's mentality to that of a quasi-hero.Brilliantly photographed by Danny Elsen and accompanied by an electrifying musical score by Stephen Warbeck THE MEMORY OF A KILLER is a taut, tense, unnerving, and fascinating tale told to perfection by Carl Joos' screenplay based on Jef Geeraerts' novel. There isn't a weak link here - every actor is superb and the performance by Jan Decleir is the stuff of which legends are made. Recommended without reservation. In Dutch and French and Flemish with English subtitles. Grady Harp