Popcorn Reviews With Cybèle: Grosse Pointe Blank

By Cybèle Elaine Werts  
CybeleW@aol.com

First  published in the Shelburne News, Shelburne Vermont

John Cusack. Cute? Never. Intense, and able to carry a drama with an edge of hardness? Absolutely.

I first noted John Cusack in The Grifters, with Annette Benning and Angelica Houston. A hard story, emotionally ripping. His performance rammed that film into my top ten. That edge came along with him to Gross Point Blank, where he plays a professional killer who goes back to his high school reunion to knock someone off, and falls in love with his high school sweetheart whom he stood up for forever at the senior prom. Unlikely? Perhaps. But he pulls it off. Not a comedy, not a drama, something along the edges of a black comedy. Maybe a purple comedy? Whatever the label, I laughed throughout this film, and thought about it for some time afterward. And it wasn’t the typical American JimCareyRosanneBillyCrystal comedy laugh - it was a deeper, slightly painful yuck yuck.

The comedy is hard and surprising, and the sexual tension sharp and sparkling, although we don’t get to see any real sex. John’s character is hard and peculiar, professional and stylishly dressed. He is a killer who accepted and perfected that secret urge to kill [I have it too, but don’t accept it] but is nevertheless most human, not in the affected movie ways, but in real ways. He dreams about a former love; visits to a therapist who is afraid of him; keeps an assistant whose elsewhereness is all too real. He believes in profit sharing.

Side dishes of Dan Ackroyd who plays another unlikely assassin. A little like Ghost Busters? Maybe. Even though he wasn’t there for the comedy, Dan has an imminent nature that makes a girl chuckle anyway. And, for Ms. Alsion’s sake - who really digs Minnie Driver, I’ll say Minnie did her part with sarcasm, cynicism and sensitivity all mixed in with a dash of don’tfuckwith me. And when she came within a foot of John Cusack, I’d bet those sparks emanated from somewhere higher than Hollywood. Believable. Darn if I can’t remember where I know her from though. Do You?

Yes, it was all real for me. Will it be real for you too?

Comments, disagreements and general bowing down to my pearls of wisdom always welcome. Let me know if you want to be off the mailing list; I won’t be crushed or anything...

The Cybele Short Movie Blurb is:

This film is a horde your box of chocolate covered orange jellies and make for the most comfortable wide seat at Cinema 9. A two thumbs, and two kisses up film.

Copyright 2000