Hired assassin Angelo Ledda Jan Decleir , unbeknownst to those around him, is on his last job. He is contracted to kill two people in Belgium and readily dispatches the first of the targets. He also acquires some incriminating video and audiotapes. But, when he learns that his second hit is a year old girl he refuses to fulfill the contract, earning the ire of his boss, Gilles Patrick Descamps. Ledda completes his first mission, killing Antwerp's City Planning Manager Bob Van Camp Lucas van den Eijnde and procuring a video from his safe, but when he discovers his second job is a young girl under thirteen, he balks and turns on the people who hired him.
Detective Chief Inspector Eric Vincke Koen De Bouw, "Left Luggage" knew that same young girl as the victim of child prostitution and once he picks up Ledda's trail they engage in a game of cat and mouse while gunning for the same target. The tricky case has an additional complication - Ledda is suffering the onslaught of Alzheimer's disease and Vincke finds himself grasping at "The Memory of a Killer.
If this first adaptation screenplay by Carl Joos is any indication, that would be a good thing, as "The Memory of a Killer" is a dense story involving sex, corruption and politics that is populated with intriguing characters all well played by this classy ensemble. The film has an intriguing, if creepy, opening. After Ledda gets his orders at a Marseilles balcony restaurant an overhead shot shows us him boning his fish , Van Looy switches the action to Antwerp, where a man we do not yet know is an undercover detective uneasily negotiates with a guy Dirk Roofthooft for his twelve year-old daughter Bieke Laurien Van den Broeck , who sits drawing in the next room.
The man sits on the couch looking horrified as the young girl begins to kiss him, but then he's outed by his wire. Cops descend and Bieke's father, who brandishes a weapon, is shot dead in front of her. Then Ledda, with names and places written on his forearm, "Memento" style, arrives in the city and tries to keep his thoughts straight Van Looy conveys Ledda's confusion with quick flashes of images as he carries out his job.
Ledda is momentarily thrown for a loop when an a. Shortly after, Ledda, having dispatched Bieke's murderer and disguised the corpse as himself, crosses paths with Vincke for the first time, but Vincke stays one step behind the contract killer who is hitting his way to the top - Minister of State Baron Henri Gustave de Haeck Jo De Meyere.
