Review: 'Memory' pits Neeson the actor against Neeson the action star — and the results are forgettable.

The unnecessarily convoluted psychological thriller “Memory” proves two things: 1) That Liam Neeson, when he wants to, can really act; and, 2) that Liam Neeson acting doesn’t mesh well with Liam Neeson being an action star.

Neeson plays Alex Lewis, a smooth contract killer known for his precision and his discretion. He wants out of the life, though, because he is feeling the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s — an inevitable condition, Alex knows, because his brother is in an advanced state of dementia. But his handler, Mauricio (Lee Boardman), insists he take this job, commenting, “men like us don’t retire.”

The job seems straightforward enough: Murder a shady lawyer (Scot Williams) in El Paso, Texas, and steal the thumb drives in the lawyer’s safe. But the second part of the job — killing a 13-year-old Mexican girl, Beatriz (Mia Sanchez), who was being sold into prostitution by her father — crosses a line for Alex, and he demands his contact (Daniel De Bourg) tell his employer to cancel the hit.

Meanwhile, an El Paso police detective, Danny Mora (Ray Stevenson), is going over the crime scene of the dead lawyer — and FBI agents Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce) and Linda Amistead (Taj Atwal) arrive, because they suspect the lawyer is tied in with the human trafficking that Beatriz’ father was conducting. Serra has vowed to keep Beatriz safe, so when she gets killed, Serra vows revenge. 

At first, Serra thinks Alex is responsible for Beatriz’ death. It takes a little while for Serra, and screenwriter Dario Scardapane (adapting a 2003 Belgian cop thriller), to get to what we already know: That Serra and Alex are going after the same power structure that protects men who want to have sex with underage girls. At the top of this food chain of wealth is El Paso real-estate tycoon Davana Sealman, played by the ageless Monica Bellucci. (I say “ageless,” but she’s actually 57, five days older than me — though she looks 20 years younger.)

Scardapane and director Martin Campbell (“GoldenEye,” “Casino Royale,” “The Mask of Zorro”) seem to be at odds, with the screenwriter trying to create a dense character study of a hitman losing his faculties, and Campbell wanting to make things shoot and explode at regular intervals. Neeson is good at both of these things, but making him do both in the same movie is a stretch.

There also are too many characters in the bloated narrative, particularly among the bad guys — though Neeson’s Alex prunes those branches at regular intervals. Pearce is left to fume and brood, and make dark pronouncements about how Alex is doing the job the FBI can’t do — taking out the evildoers, just outside the law.

Pearce’s presence is a reminder that the bouts of forgetfulness Alex endures in “Memory” were handled so much better in a movie Pearce made a couple decades ago: Christopher Nolan’s “Memento.” Now that’s a movie that’s unforgettable.

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‘Memory’

★★

Opens Friday, April 29, in theaters. Rated R for violence, some bloody images and language throughout. Running time: 114 minutes.