Hideaway meets Quincy at Sid’s house. Unforgettable is a disappointing fourth outing for director Dahl, whose previous efforts include the brilliant Red Rock West and The Last Seduction. Liotta, looking like he has just stepped out of a Maybelline Lush Lash commercial, plays Seattle criminal pathologist David Krane, a man who was recently accused of his wife’s murder but got off on a technicality thanks to some slipshod police work. Obsessed with finding his wife’s murderer, Krane becomes enthused when he meets neurobiologist Dr. Martha Briggs (Fiorentino), who claims her current line of research has discovered a way to recreate the memories of the dead by injecting their spinal fluid into the brains of rats. Not content to let slip an opportunity for getting to the bottom of his wife’s murder, no matter how far-fetched the plan might seem, Krane gets hold of the good doctor’s serum, mixes it with some fluid from his dead wife, fixes up, and sees his wife’s murder through the murderer’s eyes. The only problem is that there’s no mirror around to catch a glimpse of the killer’s face, and so Krane must continue injecting himself with the various memories of persons related to the crime. Neurotropical IV drug abuse in Seattle? What a stretch! Dahl and first-time screenwriter Bill Geddie (executive producer of the Barbara Walters specials) pack Unforgettable with so many hyper-realistic, skewed-angle flashbacks that sometimes it’s hard to tell exactly why poor David Krane doesn’t just drop his quest entirely and sit back and enjoy the trip. To be fair, those horrible chest pains and his rapidly disintegrating heart might have something to do with it, I suppose. Liotta and Fiorentino are fine here running around chasing killers, but it’s Coyote, as Krane’s detective boss, who really puts something memorable into the film. Coyote remains one of the most criminally overlooked American actors of our time; unfortunately, this isn’t going to be his break-out role. While Unforgettable picks up steam near the third act, it still plays like it’s pieced-together bits of scrapped X-Files episodes and old Jeff Goldblum films. It’s just not that satisfying. Unforgettable indeed.
This article appears in February 23 • 1996 (Cover).