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Life is about choices. This movie offers you the choice of rooting for a stalker with a heart of gold or a thief with a mind for mischief. Ironically, I've played both these roles and have had a really hard time even rooting for myself.

MEMENTO succeeds both because of and despite its gimmick. This ultimately feels nothing but gimmick. The theme of invading other people's lives is shrugged off after a few weak Tyler Durden-isms and never explored in depth. The performances are mediocre. The technical aspects show promise, but nothing special. It all just seems to revolve around the cleverness of the script, and I found the gotcha twists a bit tedious. Not bad as a first effort, but not very fulfilling or even entertaining.

Very clever film that does not seem like its budget at all. I almost wish I had seen this before Memento, but while they share similar storytelling, they are completely different. Echoing what others have said: This does not seem like a director's first movie since there is a maturity in the film making that makes that very hard to believe. Some (coincidental?) foreshadowing with the Batman decal on the door. Watch this movie to see the evolution of Nolan, but also just because it is great.

Nolan financed this himself, but it's not merely one of those "good in spite of the budget" debuts, it's a totally compelling thriller by ordinary standards. One which shows early signs of the brilliant writer-director's eye for interesting framings - as well as his proneness for narrational trickery.

Quotes: "-How can I explain? You ever been to a football match just to let your eyes rise and go over drift across a crowd of people, and then slowly start to fix on one person? And all of a sudden that person isn't part of the crowd anymore. They've become an individual, just like that."