Unforgettable (1996 film)

During an apparent drug store robbery, a woman is murdered. Seattle Medical Examiner Dr. David Krane finds a matchbook there that reminds him of one found at the scene of his wife Mary's murder. Krane is convinced that the same killer was behind the two crimes.

Meanwhile, Dr. Martha Briggs has created a serum designed to transfer memories via samples of Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF). Krane wants to volunteer to try it, but Briggs refuses.

Krane later retrieves a sample of CSF from Mary's autopsy, and then breaks into Briggs' office. At his house, Krane injects himself with the serum, and has a memory flash of the night of the murder, but cannot see the killer's face. Krane then retrieves the CSF from the victim at the drug store. Using the serum again, he manages to see the killer's face. With a police artist, he creates a sketch of the killer.

Briggs later confronts Krane about the theft of her serum. She is worried about side effects, eventually noticing that it has been damaging Krane's heart. Entering the sketch into a computer program, Krane's colleague Curtis Avery identifies the suspect as Eddie Dutton, who has a criminal history, including drugs and murders for hire. Curtis gives Krane Eddie's last known address: a motel.

There, Krane sees Eddie and has an overreaction. He runs after Eddie, who starts firing a gun. In the ensuing fight, Krane ends up with Eddie's gun. Eddie runs into a church, and grabs a kid, holding him hostage with a knife. Krane tries to talk Eddie down when the police arrive. Eventually, Detective Don Bresler shoots Eddie dead.

Because of his erratic behavior, Krane gets fired. He later sneaks into the autopsy room and steals a sample of Eddie's CSF.

With it, Krane uses the serum agaim. He has a flash of someone having sex with Mary. In the midst of the flashback, Krane inadvertently begins to choke Briggs. Apparently, before Mary died, someone noticed Krane returning to the house and fled. Briggs administers nitroglycerin to Krane, who explains that Eddie did not kill Mary. Krane reveals that he used to be a drunk and his marriage was on the rocks. He had come home drunk that night and passed out in the front yard while Mary was being murdered. She was five weeks pregnant when this happened.

The next morning, Briggs asks Curtis to get a DNA sample from Krane. She then runs the DNA for a paternity test, which shows the baby was not Krane's.

Krane confronts Mary's sister Kelly. She confesses that Mary was having an affair with a detective. While investigating this further, Krane begins to have more of Eddie's flashbacks and has a heart attack. Krane is rushed to the hospital, where he has flashbacks of the night of Mary's murder. While he and Briggs are at the hospital, an explosive device destroys her office.

Stewart Gleick, the original detective on Mary's case, later approaches Krane, saying that Detective Joseph Bodner may be the man with whom Mary was involved and thus the father of her unborn child. Bodner tried to commit suicide on the same day Mary died, but ended up in a coma instead. Krane and Briggs go to the hospice where Bodner is and take a sample of his CSF. The duo then argue about who should take the injection. Not taking any chances, Krane tapes Briggs to a seat and uses the serum. He confirms that his wife was in fact having an affair with Bodner. She met Bodner while being a witness against Bresler, who is revealed to have been corrupt.

As Krane relives these memories, Bresler arrives and decides to kill him and Briggs by lighting a fire. Just as Bresler is about to kill them, Kelly arrives at the house with Krane's kids. Krane beats Bresler unconscious and saves him and Briggs from the fire. He then goes back into the burning house to retrieve the microcassette recorder that recorded Bresler's confession.

While Bresler is arrested, Krane ends up in a coma, imagining he is with Mary and his kids. In the last few moments of the movie, he looks back over his shoulder and his wife fades away. As Dr. Martha Briggs had just told the visiting detective, it was not Krane's physical condition but rather his "mental state" that was the real cause of his coma. Thus, those last moments in Krane's mind indicate that he has finally let go of Mary and is now ready to return to his kids in real life.

• Ray Liotta as Dr. David Krane
• Linda Fiorentino as Dr. Martha Briggs
• Peter Coyote as Don Bresler
• Christopher McDonald as Stewart Gleick
• Kim Coates as Eddie Dutton
• David Paymer as Curtis Avery
• Kim Cattrall as Kelly
• William B. Davis as Dr. Smoot

Ray Liotta told an interviewer some anecdotes about filming in the morgue:

Q. Since you spend a fair amount of time in the morgue in Unforgettable, do you have any crazy coroner's tales to relate?

A. The morgue in L.A. was horrible, scary. The smell is just unbelievable. A couple of people who work there wanted to take pictures. So they took photos with bodies behind me.

Q. You mean, they took photos of you, Ray Liotta, the movie star, in the city morgue?

A. Yeah, that happened to me in two other rather strange places. For Unlawful Entry, these cops were looking for a body part. I was on-call with them, and so sure enough, they took a photograph of me with the body bag in the background. With Article 99, I played a surgeon. I did some research on open-heart surgery, and the nurses were "Oh, yeah, you're Shoeless Joe from Field of Dreams. Can we take a picture?" So there was this patient, her chest wide open, and they're taking pictures of me.^[3]