Remember

In "Remember," Christopher Plummer and Martin Landau make a most unlikely pair of Nazi hunters. Both are nearing 90 and are in various states of failing health when Plummer, as Holocaust survivor Zev, is asked by Landau, his fellow Auschwitz inmate Max, to go on a hunt across America and Canada for the Nazi commandant -- named Rudy Kurlander -- responsible for the deaths of their families. Under Max's guidance, Zev hits the road with a semi-automatic pistol to seek retribution.

Such is the premise of Atom Egoyan's thriller, which mixes some fine acting with an often far-fetched, if gripping narrative. Will Zev finds his man or end up riding a bus somewhere in a state of dementia? And will Max live long enough to help his friend on his mission? The crux of their plan unfolds in pieces -- it isn't until the film is half over that their plan is fully revealed; yet Egoyan, working with a script by Benjamin August, keeps the suspense involving even as the story pushes the levels of credibility. Stick with it because the film has a powerful payoff.

To find his man, Zev must seek out four different men, one of whom escaped to America after the war and assumed the identity of a dead POW. As he seeks them, Zev begins to reconnect with his past, either by expressing empathy or terror. The latter comes when Zev is held hostage in a horrifying sequence that convincingly recreates the horror of the camp. In this eerie chapter Dean Norris is nothing less than terrifying as a man whose prize possessions are a first edition of "Mein Kampf" and a vicious German shepherd named Eva.

Plummer brings haunting conviction to Zev, so much so that he elevates the pulpy aspects of August's script, which includes him sneaking his gun across the Canadian border or learning of his mission through the words of a little girl he meets in a hospital room. Those words are found in a letter written by Max that acts as Zev's only connection with reality, which throughout the film acts as his guide in his vigilante mission.

A lesser actor would have grandstanded in this role, but Plummer deftly balances Zef's bouts with dementia with a steely determination to finds his man. When he does finally reach him in a dreamlike, fairy-tale setting, "Remember" twists in a way that M. Night Shyamalan would admire. But Egoyan is a much more nuanced director than Shyamalan so this film's payoff isn't just a cheap trick -- it recalls what Hitchcock did best in leaving you unnerved by the entertainment that proceeded it.