Amnesia (2004)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

For some reason IMDb has this listed as a "romance" film. Well, I suppose there is a little of that but to me it seemed more like a mystery or crime-drama movie than anything else. Regardless, this is a very good film with a couple of interesting interwoven subplots throughout. Essentially, "Detective Mackenzie Stone" (John Hannah) suffers from a short-term lapse of memory involving an argument with his wife "Lucia Stone" (Beatriz Batarda) and now she has completely disappeared. He becomes frantic to find out what happened to her and turns to alcohol to escape his feelings of despair. Because of this his mind begins to play tricks on him as he starts having both hallucinations and flashbacks of his final moments with her and neither he (nor the audience) is able to figure out which are true and which aren't. At the same time, another man named "John Dean" (Anthony Calf) is suffering from long-term amnesia and cannot remember anything about his past. However, he has made a new life for himself and he and his new wife "Jenna Dean" (Jemma Redgrave) are very happy together. That is, until Detective Stone comes along. At any rate, rather than disclose any of the surprises in store for any new viewers I will just say that I just happened to check this out at my local library the other day on the spur of the moment and I'm glad I did. It had good acting, especially on the the part of John Hannah and Jenna Redgrave, and plenty of surprises along the way. One caution though, it does run a bit long (around 3 hours) so you might need to check your schedule to ensure there's room for it. But I think you'll be glad you did.

With great acting, superb writing, and well developed characters, this film is really good and will hold the interest of everyone. John Hannah gives us a desperate and tortured man who fights his inner demons. He is not even sure he didn't kill his wife. He is filled with rage, drink too much and is violent but... he loves her. Anthony Calf is brilliant. The change in his personality is wonderful. How could he change from being a sweet and lovely man to being a despicable murder? He did an excellent performance, a marvellous job. This film is a thriller with not explicit violence but with psychological depths and a good story line. I loved it.

I just watched this very well-made show on BBC America, liked it a lot, and 5 minutes later started scratching my head and went: Wait a minute... (SPOILER AHEAD) If John Dean does turn out to be such a baddie, why did he turn himself in as an amnesiac to begin with? Doesn't that open him up to investigation and getting found out? I think that, entertaining as this was (it was especially good to watch through in a 3-hour program), there may have been one too many switcheroos (good-bad-good-bad---) for the 2 main characters. For a change, wouldn't it have been nice if both ended up being decent blokes and lived happily ever after with their respective spouses, had double-dating barbecues together...

If you get a chance to see this 2-part TV show, then you certainly should. Synopsis: (NO SPOILERS)The story concerns police detective Mackenzie Stone whose wife disappeared a few years ago - and he who still recovering from the incident - experiencing weird dreams and the like. At the same time we are introduced to another man - John Dean, who is suffering from total amnesia, meaning that he remembers nothing of his past life before he turned up in hospital 5 years ago.Mackenzie Stone, played by John Hannah becomes convinced that he knows who John Dean really is, that he is a man who dissapeared a few months before John Dean appeared - and that he murdered his family before hand to claim the insurance money. However, it starts to become apparant that DS Stone may well have killed his own wife...In all this is a very good 2-parter with a very nice pay-off at the end. All the cast put on good performances, and it is all very believable.