The future is grim in Reminiscence, a Warner Bros. release starring Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson and Thandiwe Newton. Written and directed by Lisa Joy (a Westworld vet), the movie slips time-travel tropes into a well-worn film noir plot. If you’re a fan of either genre, you’ve been down this road before.
Sometime dead ahead, the coast of Florida is sinking into the sea. Politics, climate change, corruption all reduce Miami to a soggy war zone in which the poor splash through flooded streets while the rich don’t.
Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) worked in the war as an interrogator, using technology that allowed him to evoke and change memories embedded in the subconscious. The process involves electrodes, pools borrowed from Minority Report, and Nick intoning a vaguely Twilight Zone rap to his zapped-out subjects.
Nick’s a noble loser addicted to his own memories, too self-absorbed to see that his assistant “Watts” (Thandiwe Newton) has a thing for him. Jackman plays him sullen, unwilling to face up to his past behavior, incapable of applying his training and experience, ignorant of the red flags that presumably kept him alive to this point. He’s a tired stereotype with few redeeming qualities: he can throw a punch and rock a wife-beater T-shirt, but he can’t crack a joke or break free from his tunnel vision.
Into Nick’s sad life walks Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), a standard femme fatale in a clinging red dress. She wants something that Nick mistakes for love, sending him into a tailspin when she suddenly disappears.
Finding her again requires Nick to dive deep into his memories, to question New Orleans drug kingpin Saint Joe (hello Daniel Wu, but really: the accomplished lead in Johnnie To romances reduced to lounging in dressing gowns while his goons torture dimwits?) and disgraced cop Cyrus Boothe (Cliff Curtis, a nasty ham). In the process Nick uncovers a weirdly incestuous heiress, a real estate conspiracy, and something about drugs or gun running or man-eating eels.
None of it matters. Lily Joy’s vision of the future is the most interesting aspect of Reminiscence (a meaningless title, although it did force me to learn how to spell it), brought to vivid life by production designer Howard Cummings. DoP Paul Cameron does what he can to emphasize the movie’s noir elements, mostly with slanted shadows, angled perspectives, deep reds and blues.
Production values can’t fix the screenplay, with its purple voice-over passages, flashbacks and dream sequences, and gratuitous violence. The story circles around itself like a bad Philip K. Dick rip-off, maybe Next or Paycheck. The plot, none of it surprising, strands Jackman, a physical but not especially nuanced performer. Newton holds her own, but Rebecca Ferguson, an intriguing presence in her previous roles, comes off poorly. Playing a duplicitous chanteuse, she coos her way through cabaret chestnuts like “Where or When” while Jackman stares at her longingly.
Like Westworld, Reminiscence fixes its characters in a genre and plot they dimly recognize. But in this case Nick Bannister takes his role all too seriously, succumbing to noir’s tendency to sentimentalize suffering.
Captions: 1) (L-r) THANDIWE NEWTON as Watts and HUGH JACKMAN as Nick Bannister in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action thriller “REMINISCENCE.” Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein. 2) DANIEL WU as Saint Joe in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action thriller “REMINISCENCE. 3) (L-r) REBECCA FERGUSON as Mae and HUGH JACKMAN as Nick Bannister in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action thriller “REMINISCENCE.” Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein. All photos Copyright: © 2021 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
