Grosse Pointe Blank. A Review.

A couple of weeks ago I was sat on a train thinking about hit men. There was probably a suspicious looking man in a suit with a briefcase sat in the same carriage. This train of thought lead me to think about hit men movies, and the relative lack of decent films starring these morally ambiguous characters. I pondered whether it was possible, or whether the kind of person who makes a good hit man just isn’t interesting enough to be a protagonist. How would I make a good hit man movie? Well now I think I know, but I was beaten to it by George Armitage’s Grosse Pointe Blank (1997). 

Martin Blank (John Cusack at his laid back best) hasn’t been back to Grosse Point since he ditched Debi Newberry (the marvelous Minnie Driver) on prom night 10 years previous. Now he is back in town for the 10 year high school reunion, awkward rekindling of previous relationships, meeting with mom, visiting old haunts. And an assassination if he can find the time.

GPB is the best hit man film I have seen in a long while, and this is because it is principally a romantic comedy. The hit man plot features the double crossing and intrigue one finds in your standard assassin tale, but it serves mostly as a subplot to the main narrative of Martin’s reacquainting with his home town and his attempts to start things back up with the one that got away (or the one he left). It is to the script’s credit that both elements hold up very well, complementing rather than getting in one and other’s way. 

Cusack doesn’t fit the mould of a movie hitman, he doesn’t have Brad Pitt good looks or Michael Shannon’s creepiness, what he does pack into the role is humanity. Blank is a hitman with a crisis of conscience, ok nothing groundbreaking there, but what is interesting is that Blank deals with this uncertainty in a very human way. While he is seemingly cool and collected in the face of gunfire, Blank is thrown off his game by Debi. Their first reunion, awkwardly played out on live radio, exposes the fact that international assassin is just a job title, and that the person underneath is as vulnerable as us all. Grosse Pointe Blank’s masterstroke is the realization that to make a good hitman movie it is important to focus on the ordinary, rather than the extraordinary - this is a lesson Mr and Mrs Smith exploited to great benefit more recently. 

In fact I would go as far as to say that the action sequences are where Grosse Pointe Blank is at its weakest. Things have moved on since 1997, the shootout sequences are cartoonish but not in a good way. Cusack does put in a decent hand-to-hand fight sequence in the final act against ghoulish villain (and Cusack’s real life kickboxing mentor) Benny Urquidez, but by and large the action is functional and serves to advance the plot - and really isn’t that what action should be for? The principal threat to Blank is rival hitman Grocer (played in over the top fashion by Dan Aykroyd), however he is absent for most of the film, and while he returns in a big way for the final act, death at the hands of Grocer is a far less fearsome prospect that the mundane and lonely life Blank faces if he can’t get Debi back. 

With all the death and existential crises, you’d be forgiven for thinking GPB might be a glum affair. Thankfully it has a script that crackles with wit and levity, from Blank’s attempts to find answers from terrified psychiatrist Alan Arkin, to the deluded oddballs that attend the reunion, GPB is less a jet black comedy, and more a blood red rom com. Perhaps some of the references are dated, the fashion certainly is, but good old fashioned awkward boy-meets-girl-meets-assassin never goes out of style. GBP is a fun ride while it lasts, and a lesson to future filmmakers that hit men are people too. 

WHO: Minnie Driver brings the screen to life whenever she’s on. 

WHAT: The high school reunion, every bit as awful as you’d expect.

WHY: As proof that mid-life crises can happen to anyone. 

WHEN: If you, like me, were too young to catch this back in ’97, then it is worth catching up with the next time you fancy some stylish light relief. 

(Art from: http://mightyfineline.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/grosse-pointe-blank.html)