Grosse Point Blank review

spoilers for Grosse Point Blank - 1997)

People are always asking me what my favourite film of all time is. Well, they’re not, because clearly no-one gives a damn, but what I do is find an opportunity to tell them that my favourite film of all time is Grosse Point Blank. There probably are plenty of film that I like more, but I feel that things like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future are on the pantheon - everyone’s seen them, everyone knows they’re brilliant, in each case there’s precious little to say about them that hasn’t already been said multiple times. That being the case, choosing one of those films shows a distinct lack of imagination, so I have formed the opinion that someone’s favourite film should be something a little more personal, something slightly off the beaten track, a film they could champion and maybe win some fans for, something they can feel passionate about and want as many other people as possible to experience and love. Grosse Point Blank is perfect. It’s an excellent film that is not completely unknown, but one whose reputation has been steadily growing in the two decades since it’s release, and I have loved it since the first time (of many) that I saw it. (Incidentally, if your favourite film is one of those pantheon films mentioned above, absolutely fair enough, but I don’t need to hear/read another piece extolling the virtues of the Empire Strikes Back.)

For those unfamiliar, Grosse Point Blank is a black comedy that stars John Cusack as a freelance assassin who attends his ten year high school reunion. I was won over just by that. I liked John Cusack before, absolutely loved him after, to the point where I not only watched Con Air because he was in it, but then instantly forgave him for making me watch Con Air. What makes Grosse Point Blank so good is the characterisation of the protagonist, Martin Blank, and how other characters interact with him. The characterisation of Blank is done with both subtle and more broad strokes, (witness his breakfast order in a diner for the former) and I particularly like the relationships between him and his secretary, played by Cusack’s sister Joan, (who throws herself into her job with hilarious abandon) and the one between Blank and Dan Aykroyd’s Grocer, a rival hitman trying to convince Martin to join a nascent Hitman Union. There are also some very amusing scenes of Blank meeting with his psychiatrist, Alan Arkin, who is upfront about his reluctance to treat someone with Blank’s professional capabilities.

Blank is not keen to revisit his hometown of Grosse Point, Michigan, partly because he left under something of a cloud, standing up his prom date, and partly because he is aware that his profession leaves him stranded outside the normal realm of catch up chat: “What am I going to say? ‘I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How’ve you been?’” What saves the film, and ultimately saves him is the sympathy his character elicits. When we first meet Martin, he is fulfilling contracts, but the defences he has erected to shield him from what he does for a living are crumbling, and the knowledge of what he has done is taking a toll on him psychologically. His psychiatrist recommends he go to the reunion to reconnect with normalcy, but as luck would have it, work is forcing him back there as well.

What follows is a beautiful mix of black comedy, a couple of small but decent action scenes and a melancholy that comes from watching a character reflect on the choices he made and after running for ten years finally face his demons. There are some lovely bittersweet moments where you forget that Blank is a sociopathic killer for hire, and just really feel for him, like when he visits the site of his childhood home only to find it has been torn down and replaced with a convenience store, or when he goes to a nursing home to see his mother, who has lost her mind and doesn’t know who he is. The film is not worried about following emotional scenes like these with a gunfight or a building exploding, and Martin’s final conversion is so brilliantly executed that you feel like cheering, it’s so uplifting.

There’s still space for romance, an absolutely classic 80’s soundtrack, for him to effortlessly outshine his now adult former classmates and for him to actually go to the reunion itself, which might be the high point of the film. It certainly contains my favourite moment, where the clueless Blank is briefly given a baby to hold. Cusack is brilliant in this scene, but is still comprehensively upstaged by the baby with just one look. I don’t know if they were trying to get a particular expression from the infant, or they just shot until they had something suitable, but oscars have been awarded for less.

I hope it’s true to say I’m not asking for much, but if you haven’t seen this under appreciated masterpiece, I urge you to to seek it out immediately. I have never met anyone who hated this film, so the worst you’ll get is that you don’t love it as much as I do (don’t worry about that, I don’t know if it’s possible for anyone to love it as much as I do) and you might be a little nonplussed with Minnie Driver’s slightly shaky American accent, but chances are you won’t regret it. All of which reminds me, it’s been over a year since i last watched it, and every scene I’ve mentioned makes that seem like a year wasted. (Just to get through writing this article I had to watch the trailer on YouTube) So, if you’ll excuse me...