Review: 'Reminiscence' is a science-fiction noir thriller that lets Hugh Jackman explore his dark side

Considering Hollywood’s long tradition of casting hoofers as tough guys (Jimmy Cagney and Dick Powell are prime examples), it was only a matter of time before Hugh Jackman would get a shot at an old-school noir thriller.

“Reminiscence,” a science-fiction detective yarn that plays like Philip Marlowe by way of Philip K. Dick, isn’t a perfect vessel — but rookie director Lisa Joy, working off her own screenplay, gives Jackman the room to be the broken hero.

Jackman’s character, Nick Bannister, is “the man who remembers for everybody else,” as one character puts it. In a near-future Miami where the ocean has risen several feet, Nick runs a business in which clients can relive old memories, aided by his semi-alcoholic war buddy Watts (Thandiwe Newton, who’s the movie’s stealth MVP). As a side hustle, Nick and Watts also use their services to help the D.A. (Natalie Martinez) dig out criminals’ memories to use in court.

One day, a woman enters the business — and we, as savvy audience members, recognize her as the femme fatale in this situation. She’s Mae (Rebecca Ferguson, Jackman’s alluring co-star in “The Greatest Showman”), who needs help remembering where she left her keys. Nick pursues Mae, a nightclub singer, and a romance ensues.

It’s too good to last, and we find Nick obsessively returning to his own memory machine, reliving his memories with Mae, and wondering why she disappeared. While helping the D.A. probe the mind of a recalcitrant drug dealer, Nick is shocked to see Mae in the memory bank. This sends Nick on a search, to New Orleans and back to Miami, and a trail that includes a drug lord (Daniel Wu), a dirty cop (Cliff Curtis), an ailing land baron (Brett Cullen), the baron’s brain-damaged wife (“Roma’s” Marina de Tavira) — and information that makes him doubt everything he knows about Mae.

Joy, who co-created HBO’s “Westworld” (with her husband, Jonathan Nolan), does some impressive world-building in her feature debut — creating a richly detailed semi-dystopian Miami, where the rich stay dry and everyone else fights to stay above water. There are some scenes, like a long fight between Jackman and Curtis, that are set-designed to an astonishing degree, and the visual style poured into the memory machine’s hologram technology is quite beautiful.

Not everything works in Joy’s script. A few of the twists are forced, and some of the noir references — particularly the nods to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” — are a little on the nose. And Jackman’s wall-to-wall narration is the most oppressive voiceover since Harrison Ford’s in “Blade Runner.” 

The good news with “Reminiscence” is that Jackman puts his brooding charisma to good use, giving Nick the dark shading a noir antihero needs. It’s a serviceable role, even if it won’t be his most memorable one.

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‘Reminiscence’

★★★

Opens Friday, August 20, in theaters, and streaming on HBO Max. Rated PG-13 for strong violence, drug material throughout, sexual content and some strong language.