DIRECTOR
George Armitage
SCREENWRITERS
Tom Jankiewicz
D.V. DeVincentis
Steve Pink
John Cusack
STORY
BY
Tom Jankiewicz
PRODUCERS
Susan Arnold
Roger Birnbaum
Donna Arkoff Roth
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Jamie Anderson
MUSIC
Joe Strummer
EDITOR
Brian Berdan
CAST
John Cusack (Martin Q. Blank)
Minnie Driver (Debi Newberry)
Alan Arkin (Dr. Oatman)
Dan Aykroyd (Grocer)
Joan Cusack (Marcella)
Hank Azaria (Lardner)
K. Todd Freeman (McCullers)
Jeremy Piven (Paul Spericki)
Mitchell Ryan (Mr. Newberry)
Michael Cudlitz (Bob Destepello)
Benny Urquidez (Felix La PuBelle)
Duffy Taylor (Ultimart Carl)
Audrey Kissel (Arlene)
Carlos Jacott (Ken)
Ann Cusack (Amy)
Barbara Harris (Mary Blank)
Wendy Thorlakson (Melanie)
Belita Moreno (Mrs. Kinetta)
Pat O'Neill (Nathaniel)
Jenna Elfman (Tanya)
Steve Pink (Terry)
Traci Dority (Jenny Slater)
MPAA rating: R
Running
time: 107m
U.S. release: April 11, 1997
Video availability: VHS - DVD
See also:
- High
Fidelity
|
Grosse
Pointe Blank, which
seems destined for cult-movie status (it didn't open very well),
may have arrived too early to capitalize on the growing '80s
nostalgia. For Generation X, '70s nostalgia (which returns twentysomethings
to childhood) seems to have played itself out; this movie and
Romy
and Michele's High School Reunion are now reminding their
target audience of their teens. A bigger problem for Grosse
Pointe Blank is that it looks like another Tarantino clone.
No clone, this; in its modest way, it's one of the year's best
films, and certainly the funniest and freshest.
The movie stars John Cusack, the prince of smart '80s cult comedies
(The Sure Thing, Better Off Dead, One Crazy
Summer) who became a Gen-X icon as Lloyd Dobler in Say
Anything. In Grosse Pointe Blank, which he also co-wrote
(with buddies Steve Pink and D. V. DeVincentis, reworking a Tom
Jankiewicz script the star optioned for himself), Cusack doesn't
buy, sell, or process anything, but he does kill people for a
living. Call it Slay Anything. Cusack even does some kickboxing
and has a few scenes with his endearingly off-center sister Joan
(who plays his long-suffering but devoted secretary). He's called
Martin Q. Blank here, but he's Lloyd as a reservoir dog.
Which is an entirely charming premise. If Martin were played
by anyone else -- say, a fellow '80s veteran like Kevin Bacon
or Charlie Sheen -- the movie wouldn't work. Grosse Pointe
Blank, which is quite violent at times, needs Cusack's witty
aura of decency. Like many of his generation, Martin has stumbled
into a job he's getting sick of. Talking to his shrink (Alan
Arkin), he denies any personal connection to his work. Whenever
he's forced to kill, he insists "It's not me." Cusack
and his co-writers use professional killing as a metaphor for
the dreaded buying, selling, and processing that trap so many
Martins (and Lloyds).
Martin isn't as chipper about his job as is his deranged colleague
"the Grocer" (Dan Aykroyd, casually turning in his
best performance in years), who envisions an assassin's union
and wants Martin to join. Instead, Martin takes a freelance hit
job near his hometown of Grosse Pointe, where his ten-year class
reunion is approaching. He tracks down his ex-girlfriend Debi
(Minnie Driver, who matches up beautifully with Cusack; they're
funky post-punk soulmates), whom he stood up on prom night and
has obsessed about ever since. His childhood house, he discovers,
has been supplanted by a convenience store. "You can never
go home again," he sighs, "but I guess you can shop
there."
When Martin slouches homeward, a variety of unforced scenes flesh
out his character for us. He has a natural, easy rapport with
Debi even after ten years of absence; they seem to pick up exactly
where they left off, even though the past decade has meant a
failed marriage for her and a lot of dead bodies for him. They
remind each other of the potential they once thought they had,
and their deftly written dialogue has a sting of depression giving
way to a flowering of hope -- maybe they can ditch it all and
start over. We feel the history between them, the shared in-jokes
and tastes (they both seem to have been seriously into the Clash
and the Specials in high school -- when Martin visits Debi at
her home, she greets him with a line from a Specials song). Cusack's
and Driver's acting styles mesh so seamlessly that a magical
thing happens: in the middle of this hipster black comedy about
a hit man, you're watching a bona fide romantic couple (smart,
suave, smitten with each other) right out of a Cary Grant classic.
The freshest aspect of Grosse Pointe Blank is the depressed
hit man's encounters with his fellow alumni in town and at the
reunion. His meeting with his former English teacher is a rapid-fire
exchange of amiable sarcasm that tells us volumes about the student
Martin might have been: a brainy kid popular with the faculty
because he made them laugh. Jeremy Piven (Ellen, PCU)
is in riotous form as an old buddy who hardly blinks at Martin's
job: "Do you need grad school for that?" In fact, I
wanted more reunion scenes and a little less of the Grocer and
the corrupt feds tailing Martin; their scenes are funny and necessary
but a tad stale. I particularly liked Martin's run-in with a
brawny cokehead who bullied him in school. Instead of wasting
him (as he easily could, with years of lethal experience at his
fingertips), Martin calms him down -- "There is no conflict
between us; there is no us" -- and the cokehead,
suddenly sentimental, favors Martin with a muddled, heartfelt
poem he's written. Most other comedies would have gone for a
cheap laugh in which Martin drops the guy with one well-aimed
foot. But this isn't a movie that goes for anything cheap. It's
a true original.
Grosse Pointe Blank is smartly directed by George Armitage,
whose 1990 Miami Blues wasn't as successful a balance
of quirky and queasy; the gore sometimes drowned the humor. Here
he gets it just right, aided by great '80s new-wave pop as sparkly
counterpoint to the mayhem. I bet, for instance, that you'll
never hear Nena's "99 Luftballons" the same way again.
Grosse Pointe Blank is a lot of fun. As Lloyd Dobler might
say, it's "warped and twisted and hilarious." |
