Amnesia

A psychological thriller which is worth watching if you don't think too hard about the character with amnesia.

There is a double storyline which intertwines and keeps the viewing guessing about what is going on with the two male leads.

The ending is just too ludicrous. Was he an undisclosed channel swimmer?

Spoiler: What was the point of the amnesiac drawing attention to himself by walking into A&E and claiming he knew nothing about himself or his history. Why did he let himself be examined in a way that would show that he had no brain trauma?

With sufficient IT skills to be able to hack into just about anything, including banks, then why choose an altogether more risky way to commit fraud and embezzlement.

You'll come up with several different denouements for "Amnesia" - not sure if you'll get the right one.

The story concerns an amnesiac, John Dean (Anthony Calf) who is asked to take part in an experiment for a treatment that shows great promise. At first he refuses. He is not sure he wants to know about his past as he is happily married and has a good life, but he and his wife (Jemma Redgrave) need the money, so he agrees to do it.

DC Mackenzie Stone meanwhile is searching for his wife, who walked out on him a year ago. He has very little memory of what happened and why she took off, except for brief flashes and terrible nightmares. He constantly goes through missing person reports.

When he sees one for a Paul West, he thinks that West might be Dean and starts an investigation. He soon learns that Dean's wife and child were killed in a fire, and then West disappeared. Shortly after that, Dean showed up in their town.

Mackenzie's partner, Brendan Coyle, starts to think that Mackenzie may have killed his wife.

Mackenzie thinks that John Dean is Paul West and that West killed his wife and child and probably killed before.

So who's right? Are they both right? Both wrong? One right and one wrong?

Great story, with the actors' excellent work throughout a bonus. They are all terrific.

I saw this on Netflix - I recommend it highly.

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 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.

This programme creates two intertwined story lines. One involves a detective whose wife apparently runs out on him on their 5th wedding anniversary and is not seen or heard from in the 3 months before the programme starts. The other story is about a man with apparent amnesia who MAY have murdered his wife and step child.

The detective falls apart, drinking heavily and starts to confuse fantasy and reality. Then he decides that two men appearing on two different Missing Posters are the same man, and this is the amnesiac man. The detective starts putting pressure on the amnesiac to admit who he is. Meanwhile other detectives begin to question whether the wife really ran away.

This programme relies heavily on amnesia, memory loss, memory gaps, hallucinations, twisted memories, unreliable remembrances. As such, nothing you see or hear can be relied upon. And therein lies the problem. There is nothing in this programme to get your teeth into. There are no reliable facts to hold on to. None at all.

Is the amnesiac a murderer? Is the detective a murderer? Has anyone actually been murdered? Does anyone care? Sure, it has the high production values of UK-based drama, with fine acting and a reasonable script, but the story just doesn't hold water and the over-use of unreliable memories makes the plot too fluid to be involving.

I lost count of the number of slamming doors when nobody was there, out of focus flashbacks, deliberately vague memories, seeing things that weren't there, mistaking one person for another, red herrings, over reactions and implausible coincidences. Everything is just too contrived to make sense.

Oh, and the computer skills ascribed to one of the characters is simply impossible.

Overall I found the plot simplistic, obvious and devoid of tension. If you don't bother to pay attention or think about what you're watching then you'll undoubtedly be surprised by the ending. Personally I knew the outcome less than 5 minutes into the programme.

A really disappointing programme.

One has lost his wife and never got over it and never could realise what really happened, but she is gone, that is all we and he knows about it, since no body was ever found, alive or dead, and the other one suffers from permanent amnesia since five years, or so it seems. There is something very fishy about both cases. The first one (John Hannah) in the line of duty as a police officer suspects the other one of being a murderer who killed his wife and stepson and keeps harassing him and his wife, claiming he is another person or has been another person. In the last five minutes all the mysteries seem to get their explanation which however leaves you with a load of question marks with no possible answers, since the rest is missing. You are left hanging on a cliff with nothing but your own speculations to help you out into further possibilities of tunnels in the labyrinth to nowhere...