Grosse Pointe BlankTen years from now, who will you be? Soccer mom? Insurance agent? Professional killer? Grosse Pointe Blank is the story of Martin Blank (John Cusack), a hitman who reluctantly returns home to Detroit, Michigan for his ten year high school reunion. Martin reunites with his erstwhile love, Debi Newberry (Minnie Driver), a radio DJ who has been nursing a broken heart since Martin vanished without a trace and stood her up on prom night. Martin's return is twofold: to reunite with his long-lost love and to perform a hit in the area. But before he can take care of the latter, he will need to dodge the metaphorical and literal bullets of his rival assassin, Grocer (Dan Aykroyd).
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In keeping with the existential crisis Martin is undergoing, Grosse Pointe Blank is a film that is divided in its tone. For a film about clandestine killings, replete with numerous firefights between hardened killers armed with automatic weapons, the film rapidly shifts gears between moments of romantic comedy and nostalgia into those of intense and bloody violence...kind of like the love child of John Hughes and Tom Clancy. Martin embraces the loner image, from his aloof attitude to his stylish, all-black suits. The irony here--especially for an assassin--is that Martin projects himself as a dangerous man (which he is), someone standoffish and unapproachable...not to be messed with. It's like a defense against the world around him, insulating himself from facing the realities in life he's running from. It is a supreme effort for his handler, Marcella (Joan Cusack), to try to pique Martin's interest with the prospect of going back home for a return to his unlikely roots. Much of Martin's psychological profile comes through in his backstory, and through his therapy sessions with his reluctant psychiatrist, Dr. Oatman (Alan Arkin). He talks about how he didn't trust himself at the end of his high school days, went to join the army, and due to a certain "moral flexibility", became recruited and trained as a killer for the government before going "independent". He talks about how he wasn't satisfied with his home life, but what that involved is largely ambiguous. He goes to visit his mother in a mental hospital, who is ailing from some psychiatric distress, and his father has been dead for some time, passing on while he was away. A brief scene of him pouring a bottle of liquor over his grave implies a lot--perhaps that his father was an alcoholic, or that Martin's choice to join the army was to show his father that he could be a "man". These varied psychological facets of Martin Blank make him a surprisingly complex and nuanced character, which supports the plot of Grosse Point Blank, which is his odyssey of rediscovering himself and evaluating if he has truly achieved what he hoped some ten years later.
What's interesting about Martin is that for someone who is surprisingly comfortable with killing, the prospect of going home is what fills him with overwhelming dread. Martin, like many people, has grown complacent in a life which is without challenge or even purpose. Going home forces him to evaluate this and reconsider if his choices in life have been for the right reasons...or were even the right ones at all. These crises of conscience are clearly affecting Martin even before this soul-searching expedition; his quality of "work" has been suffering as of late, observed by Marcella and flaunted by Grocer. As he goes back to Detroit, ghosts from his current life come back to haunt him in the form of a pair of government "spooks" sent by Grocer to off his rival, as well as another hitman with a contract out on Martin himself. So Martin's return home is doubly deadly in that he must fend off the literal threats on his life while navigating the perilous waters of reuniting with people from high school, reopening the emotional wounds of vestigial relationships. A one-time good buddy of Martin's, Paul Spericki (Jeremy Piven), has gone "respectable" by selling real estate, and dismisses Martin's out of hand comments about his profession--as everyone does--not even considering that Martin actually kills people for a living. It takes a certain kind of iron will to kill someone, especially with the disaffected mindset of a professional killer. So when Martin reunites with Debi, his awkwardness is ironic, but coming from a place that he hasn't really cultivated with time. This leaves Martin with a shyness and sense of vulnerability to the emotions he has since buried in his ostensible efforts to "find himself", only to really lose himself. The fateful break a decade prior had a lasting effect on Debi as well, and she expresses a similar kind of awkwardness, unsure how to cope with her own emotions in the face of this reunion. Both of them put their hearts on the line, and their dialogue is an assortment of thrusts and parries as they attempt to gauge the true feelings of the other, a bit gunshy of plunging into romance without a safety net again.
For a movie about a hitman, a significant amount of Grosse Pointe Blank concerns itself with nostalgia. The soundtrack of the film is positively packed full with familiar Eighties rock, pop, and punk songs that entrench the film in a spirit of the times, made more overt by Debi's occupation. But Grosse Pointe Blank also exploits these colorful pop hits by juxtaposing them with darkly comic moments of extreme violence, like a shootout at the Ultimart where Martin's childhood home once stood set to Motörhead's "Ace of Spades", or when Martin and Paul are forced to dispose of a body as Nena's "99 Luftballons" plays in the background. As Martin spends his time in his old stomping grounds, he reunites with other people from his past. They are like walk-ons from a rerun of Martin's memories, and the encounters are similar to the kinds of small talk-laden interactions you or I might have were we to run into an old school acquaintance years after graduation. The varying tone of these encounters speaks to Martin's prior friendships or rivalries--some are upbeat, some are terse--and just as they are with Martin, they are reminders of who we were, and what we've become, and who helped us reach that point. When Martin reunites with a classmate who has since married and who brings her infant son, Robbie, to the reunion, Martin holds the baby and stares deep into the innocent, vulnerable child's eyes, and there is a spark of something in Martin he didn't realize was there. Perhaps it is actually a "newfound respect for life", but Martin's adventure into his past--as it is often the case--is a necessary rooting out of unresolved emotions in order to move forward in life.
Recommended for: Fans of a combination of comedy, romance, and action, filled with witty dialogue and nostalgia. Grosse Pointe Blank is a clever film that reminds one to accept one's past mistakes in order to get to know yourself better.
What's interesting about Martin is that for someone who is surprisingly comfortable with killing, the prospect of going home is what fills him with overwhelming dread. Martin, like many people, has grown complacent in a life which is without challenge or even purpose. Going home forces him to evaluate this and reconsider if his choices in life have been for the right reasons...or were even the right ones at all. These crises of conscience are clearly affecting Martin even before this soul-searching expedition; his quality of "work" has been suffering as of late, observed by Marcella and flaunted by Grocer. As he goes back to Detroit, ghosts from his current life come back to haunt him in the form of a pair of government "spooks" sent by Grocer to off his rival, as well as another hitman with a contract out on Martin himself. So Martin's return home is doubly deadly in that he must fend off the literal threats on his life while navigating the perilous waters of reuniting with people from high school, reopening the emotional wounds of vestigial relationships. A one-time good buddy of Martin's, Paul Spericki (Jeremy Piven), has gone "respectable" by selling real estate, and dismisses Martin's out of hand comments about his profession--as everyone does--not even considering that Martin actually kills people for a living. It takes a certain kind of iron will to kill someone, especially with the disaffected mindset of a professional killer. So when Martin reunites with Debi, his awkwardness is ironic, but coming from a place that he hasn't really cultivated with time. This leaves Martin with a shyness and sense of vulnerability to the emotions he has since buried in his ostensible efforts to "find himself", only to really lose himself. The fateful break a decade prior had a lasting effect on Debi as well, and she expresses a similar kind of awkwardness, unsure how to cope with her own emotions in the face of this reunion. Both of them put their hearts on the line, and their dialogue is an assortment of thrusts and parries as they attempt to gauge the true feelings of the other, a bit gunshy of plunging into romance without a safety net again.
For a movie about a hitman, a significant amount of Grosse Pointe Blank concerns itself with nostalgia. The soundtrack of the film is positively packed full with familiar Eighties rock, pop, and punk songs that entrench the film in a spirit of the times, made more overt by Debi's occupation. But Grosse Pointe Blank also exploits these colorful pop hits by juxtaposing them with darkly comic moments of extreme violence, like a shootout at the Ultimart where Martin's childhood home once stood set to Motörhead's "Ace of Spades", or when Martin and Paul are forced to dispose of a body as Nena's "99 Luftballons" plays in the background. As Martin spends his time in his old stomping grounds, he reunites with other people from his past. They are like walk-ons from a rerun of Martin's memories, and the encounters are similar to the kinds of small talk-laden interactions you or I might have were we to run into an old school acquaintance years after graduation. The varying tone of these encounters speaks to Martin's prior friendships or rivalries--some are upbeat, some are terse--and just as they are with Martin, they are reminders of who we were, and what we've become, and who helped us reach that point. When Martin reunites with a classmate who has since married and who brings her infant son, Robbie, to the reunion, Martin holds the baby and stares deep into the innocent, vulnerable child's eyes, and there is a spark of something in Martin he didn't realize was there. Perhaps it is actually a "newfound respect for life", but Martin's adventure into his past--as it is often the case--is a necessary rooting out of unresolved emotions in order to move forward in life.
Recommended for: Fans of a combination of comedy, romance, and action, filled with witty dialogue and nostalgia. Grosse Pointe Blank is a clever film that reminds one to accept one's past mistakes in order to get to know yourself better.