Grosse Pointe Blank

365 Films

Entry #78

Grosse Pointe Blank (1996)

Directed by George Armitage

I don’t think I am the first to make this observation but let’s pretend for the sake of argument that I am, Grosse Pointe Blank is an unofficial sequel to Say Anything.  John Cusack’s Martin Blank in many ways represents the unleashed id of Lloyd Dobler had he freaked out at the prospect of a life spent with Diane Court.  Lloyd was a blossoming kickboxing champion, right? It therefore stands to reason that he could have re-directed those violent tendencies to the military and then into the field of the mercenary contract killer.  In fact, Grosse Pointe Blank could also stand as a corrective/natural extension to and of all the charming, borderline nihilistic teen characters Cusack portrayed in the beginning of his career.  The fact that Cusack concocted this story with a bunch of high school friends points to the idea that the self-reflexivity at work extends far beyond the premise.  Speaking of which, Grosse Pointe Blank is about a professional hit man Martin Blank (Cusack) who begins the film having an early, work-related mid life crisis.   As luck would have it, a contract brings him to his home-town of Grosse Pointe, simultaneously occurring the exact same weekend as his ten year class of ’86 high school reunion.  One of the many pleasurable attributes of Grosse Pointe Blank is the fact that the plot itself is little more than an excuse to meander and spend equal time with a wonderfully entertaining cast of characters.  Is there any need to have Martin run into an old high school friend played by Jeremy Piven?  No, of course not, but Piven’s pre-Entourage instincts and natural chemistry with Cusack pay off dividends in adding to the rich texture of the story.  That entire subplot is completely worth it, in my opinion, for the single shot of Piven parking his car in the only red zone on a completely empty public street.  Minnie Driver plays Debi, the high school sweetheart Martin stood up on prom night, her wary and supremely cynical cautious acceptance of Martin gives their romantic scenes a much needed screwball edge.  And I would be remiss not to mention Dan Ackroyd as Grocer, the villain of the piece, whose gleefully demented personality gives his character a delightful mixture of mirth and menace.  I bring all of this up simply to highlight just how deep the film’s comedic casting bench is (there are several other wonderful performances as well that I’m not mentioning) and that it alone highlights how many moving parts must be assembled and at peak operating conditions in order to pull off something as breezily entertaining as Grosse Pointe Blank.  I hate to sound like a broken record here (I’m pretty sure we’re far beyond the point of no return for that) but I’m hard pressed to think of a film, especially a modern comedy, that works as consistently well as this one does at just firing on all cylinders.  The film is a testament to the power of the expertly timed and comically charged dialogue exchange.  The language in this film has a musicality to it that the performers nail with precision in every single scene.  Looking back, it makes perfect sense Cusack took such great pains to accomplish this project.  As a showcase for his abilities as an actor, it is a flawless vessel, but as a shining beacon of American cinematic comedy at its sharpest, it has very few rivals.