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August 02, 2002

Gross Point Blank

Superior black comedy

John Cusack is Blank, an independent hitman, travelling the world and killing interesting people. But he is losing his taste for the job when fellow hitman Dan Ackroyd tries to force him to join an assassins union. Around the same time he gets offered a hit in his old home town Gross Point, on the same weekend as his 10 year high school reunion. Returning to the town, he meets up with old aquaintances, including former sweetheart Minnie Driver whom he abandoned on prom night.

At the reunion, Ackroyd sends a killer to get Cusack, and Driver witnesses the end of the bloody battle between the two men. Cusack wins, but Driver is appalled and runs away. So we've had boy finds girl, and boy loses girl, how will he get her back again to complete to cycle. Interestingly it turns out that the hit Cusack is supposed to perform is on Drivers father. Knowing that Ackroyd is trying to discredit him, Cusack realises that he will try to kill Driver's father himself, so he races to the house. There is an amusing, and very violent gunfight that Cusack wins, and he and Driver reunite and drive off into the sunset.

One of the cleverest parts of this film is the way assassins are treated like normal businessmen, with offices and secretaries, unions, and inter-company rivalry. Also when he tells his old schoolfriends that he is now a professional killer they all think it's a joke, well you would, wouldn't you?

This film is very funny, in a very sick way, and makes clever points about what really brings happiness.

AE 0

Posted by se71 at August 2, 2002 10:37 AM

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