Grosse Pointe Blank
(George Armitage, 1997)
Bookworms and libarians everywhere are celebrating, as John Cusack tries to bring seriousness and meaning to the phrase 'Do Not Disturb.'"I should’ve brought my gun."
"What?"
"It’s going to be a lot of fun!"
“Grosse Pointe Blank” is an intoxicating blend of genres we love: noir, high-school reunion, quirky comedy, action, drama. Its secret weapon is John Cusack’s neurotic, deadpan character Martin Blank, a hit man who — surprise, surprise, and go fuck yourself, self-righteous PC American anti-hero — actually admits he “enjoys killing people.” In fact, much later in the film, Cusack’s Martin Blank will attempt to touch upon other finer points of being a hitman, just before he proposes to his high school sweetheart, as bullets fly and dead bodies pile up, in one of the most ingeniously constructed finales ever. It’s a perfect scene, everything Doug Liman’s shallow “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” pretended to be.
The great thing about “Grosse Pointe Blank” — apart from the witty dialogue, the clever story and memorable characters — is the sheer feeling of nostalgia it evokes in the viewer: we’ve all dreaded attending our high school reunion, but we've also fantasised about it for years…meeting our classmates, finding out how the hottest girl in school has turned out, hoping to finally get even with the school bully (in the film Blank and the jock have a tender moment in the corridor, the encounter capped off by a poem recital!).
At the deep center of this smart and idiosyncratic film is the riotous romance between the Minnie Driver and John Cusack characters. Tthe chemistry between them sizzles; their childlike innocence and playfulness mirroring what they were 10 years ago, when Blank stood up her up at the prom (during the reunion dance, he apologises: “I’m sorry for fucking up your life.”) The 80s music is an integral part of the film’s appeal, naturally adding to the cool factor. (Yes, 80s music is not only synthesisers and electronic organs.)
It also doesn’t hurt to have Dan Akroyd as the persnickety villain, Grocer, himself so obsessed with Blank that he’d rather have him as a trophy on his wall than allow him a peaceful retirement from the hitman business. Akroyd gives a scathingly funny performance; his character is cuckoo-crazy and susceptible to frequent babbling (”You think about it. You PONDER!”). The film features at least two of the best fight/death scenes ever: the corridor-pen-fight and someone’s head smashed through a TV!
“Grosse Pointe Blank” may just be the best high school reunion movie ever made.
