Grosse Pointe Blank

Shoots blanks

Features: John Cusack, Joan Cusack, couple of other Cusacks, Alan Arkin, Dan Ackroyd
Director:
John Cusack is a hit man who goes to his high school reunion. So Grosse Point Blank follows that fine Hollywood tradition of very similar movies being released within weeks of each other. Lisa Kudrow of Friends has her high school reunion movie also. Who'd've thunk it? I mean, just because we have two volcano movies, two talking pig movies, two deathrow inmate movies, two Prefontaine movies, two historical Scottish figure movies, two where the US Prez had somebody offed movies; God forbid if the studio suits learned to JUST SAY NO!

Anyway, Cusack does a FUBAR during a hit, so has to make amends with a freebie kill. (Such honor!) The hit takes place in his hometown during his reunion so he kills two birds with one stone. (Such luck!)

Dan Ackroyd, looking remarkably un-SNL-like with the pounds of fat slathered about his body, is a fellow hitman looking to pull a Jimmy Hoffa. (That's unionize, not disappear.) Alan Arkin is a shrink helping Cusack deal with his pain over killing people. (Poor guy.) Joan Cusack is Cusack's secretary.

It used to be back in the times When Books Were Read, that if a novel was compared to Catch-22, it would snag me for a read. Nowadays we get the movie equivalent--being compared to Pulp Fiction. (At one point in the flick a lifesize cardboard cutout of Pulp's characters gets shot up all to hell. Coincidence? I think not.)

Movie has Cusack arriving back at Grosse Point. He strikes up a reacquain- tance with his old flame. She's a radio DJ who puts him on the spot on the air for a comedic sequence which falls completely flat.

On the other hand, Cusack talks to the mirror as he prepares for the function. That sequence is some of the driest, funniest monologue that I've heard in a long time.

Ackroyd and other hitmen also travel to Grosse point. As you can imagine, all sorts of wackiness ensues. Bang bang, stab stab.

It's like this: the movie has its moments, but overall pretty ambivalent. Grosse just lurches from one set piece to another. Jokes are amazingly sparse and those which are delivered usually come up so DOA that not even ER could revive them.

Movie's plot is as sparse as it reads. Suspension of disbelief is thrown out the window with the number of Federal-indictment-friendly phone conver- sations that Cusack and Cusack engage. They discuss hits and buying ammo with all the aplomb of planning a church social. Uh-huh. Sure.

If you wanna see a quirky comedy that's at least a notch higher on the comedy dial than Dumb and Dumber fare, then go. If you want two hours of solid yocks, then don't.

Movie's suitability for:

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