Wow! Such a good movie.

To me, this movie is perfection.

Thanks for the memories!

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Grosse Point Blank is a serviceable black comedy. It's full of that 90's witty dialogue that Hollywood just couldn't get enough of in that era. The plot is fairly original and there is solid acting throughout. Alan Arkin is a scene-stealer in this flick and probably the funniest part of the movie. John Cusack and Minnie Driver have excellent chemistry and their scenes together are quite good. Dan Aykroyd's character is just idiosyncratic and goofy enough to work. I think he gives a great performance, one of his best. There are a few problems with the movie. The script can get a bit over the top at times. The subplot involving Hank Azaria and K. Todd Freeman is fairly unnecessary and dull. I know the producers envisioned these two partners to have witty banter back and forth but it never really works. As far as direction and cinematography goes, there's nothing really of note here. It's not bad but it's nothing special. It never distracts you from the actors or the plot so in that sense, it works.Overall, I'd give it a recommendation.

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997): Dir: George Armitage / Cast: John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Joan Cusack: Empty headed comic thriller starring John Cusack as Blank who is headed to Grosse Pointe to attend his high school reunion. He is also targeted by the F.B.I. and several hit men because he wishes to leave his old lifestyle behind. He aims to reunite with Minnie Driver whom he stood up at the prom. Director George Armitage is inventive despite the disaster it all becomes. For all of its production and ideas the cast linger as if being bounced back and forth within a pinball machine. Cusack is involved in a lame sequence with Dan Aykroyd where they draw guns on each other in a restaurant. Then there is the convenient store shootout with an employee on the arcade game. It makes little sense and Cusack can only hint the potential the role had before its sentimental conclusion. Driver starts out well as the disc jockey until becoming reduced to romantic clichés. Alan Arkin has his moments as Cusack's therapist but it is a one note role that hardly elevates. Aykroyd is a complete miscast as a hit-man out to bring down Cusack in a very violent conclusion. And of course, Joan Cusack in support of her brother and makes an appearance. Theme regards empty lives due to bad choices. The film had good ideas that were hindered by its level of violence. Score: 5 / 10

Martin Blank (John Cusack) is a professional assassin who is sent on a mission to Detroit which by sheer coincidence is the same city that his 10 year school reunion is taking place. Complications ensue for Blank when his rival Grocer (Dan Aykroyd) discovers that he's pursuing the same target as Blank. Blank also ends up side-tracked when he becomes more interested in rekindling his romance with Debi Newberry (Minnie Driver) who is the girl that he stood up 10 years ago.I'll be blunt and admit that this film bored me to tears. I don't understand how it's garnered its current IMDb rating of 7.4. The film has a good concept and I liked the idea of 2 rival assassins being at loggerheads and the idea of them pursuing one other certainly makes for a funny idea on paper. The problem is that the film doesn't play out this way and for the most part it was a dull and tedious film revolving around Blank and Newberry attempting to turn the clock back and rekindle their romance that never was. The problem is that their characters are quite poorly developed and not particularly interesting and the same could be said for their romance. I honestly couldn't have cared less whether they got together or not. Had this aspect acted as a sub plot rather than the main plot then I probably wouldn't have been as annoyed, but this aspect of the film is too weak and uninteresting to drive the majority of the narrative.Other problems with the film are that it quite simply isn't very funny. It's billed as a 'Black Comedy' so I didn't expect a laugh riot, but I did expect for there to be a moderately humorous tone running throughout. Alan Arkin was great as Blank's therapist and I wish that he'd been given more screen time. Sadly, the limited screen time he was given wasn't enough to save this shambles. No-one else really stood out for me.The film shifts up a gear in the final 15 minutes and I must admit the finale was quite fun, but again it wasn't enough to even raise the film to 'average' as a whole.I think the problem for me with this film was expectations; I expected this to be a fun, dark edged rivalry between 2 assassins, but what I got for the most part was a dull, tedious largely unfunny rekindling of a romance which I neither wanted nor cared about. I was tempted to give this film a 1 out of 10 as it was shockingly bad, but I raised my score to a 3 out of 10 as I felt that it deserved a little bit of credit for the couple of laughs that it got from me.

Professional assassin Cusack acts upon an invitation to attend his 10-year high school reunion in his home town of Grosse Pointe, Michigan where he reconnects with lost love Driver and other old friends, while also being tailed by both an assassin (Urquidez) and two National Security Agency agents (Azaria and Freeman). May have worked in 1997, but (thankfully) cinema has since found ways of creating more likable and plausible anti-heroes than what has been given here. The soundtrack is one of the film's few pluses. One of the few terrible movies that doesn't make you feel outraged by wasting two hours of your life, but it is still a heavily flawed and far-fetched outing nonetheless, despite its appealing but sadly failed concept. This probably looked excellent in script-form, but in life-action, everything seems so paper-thin. The "happy" ending is just insultingly cheap.*½ (out of four)