This is an enjoyable, quirky movie about a contract hit-man (named Blank) with a point blank predilection returning to his home town Grosse Pointe, Michigan for his dreaded ten-year class reunion. Once he gets there, romance is in the air betwixt him and his highschool-sweetheart (whom he had ditched at the prom), and also a good amount of lead from a disgruntled ex-customer and a competitor. The acting is solid and there are several funny scenes and dialogues. And the soundtrack is packed with 1980ies hits and misses.
But I still found this movie unsatisfying: it doesn't gel. It's of course a farce rather than a documentary, but everything seems slightly implausible or doesn't add up. Many scenes reminded me of those DVD-extras which the director decided to throw out in the final cut because they "didn't help with the story". Here they kept them in and made a movie out of it.
Example, when hit-man Martin Blank (John Cusack) comes to pick up his reunion date Debi (Minnie Driver), she goes like "Come in, my dad's *dying* to meet you!". On earth why? Because he's got a role to play later on and so must somehow be introduced, that's why. Which is also why sassy DJane Minnie inexplicably still lives with him. And his role is actually that, by a 300 million : 1 coincidence, Blank's manic main competitor (brilliant Dan Ackroyd) happens to have a contract on this dude.
I'm not saying that that one scene broke the movie; but there are plenty other scenes like that, which makes the script a bit too dumb and forceful for my taste. But if you manage to switch your cerebrum one notch back and just go with the flow, and if black comedy is up your street, then you won't regret checking this one out.
But I still found this movie unsatisfying: it doesn't gel. It's of course a farce rather than a documentary, but everything seems slightly implausible or doesn't add up. Many scenes reminded me of those DVD-extras which the director decided to throw out in the final cut because they "didn't help with the story". Here they kept them in and made a movie out of it.
Example, when hit-man Martin Blank (John Cusack) comes to pick up his reunion date Debi (Minnie Driver), she goes like "Come in, my dad's *dying* to meet you!". On earth why? Because he's got a role to play later on and so must somehow be introduced, that's why. Which is also why sassy DJane Minnie inexplicably still lives with him. And his role is actually that, by a 300 million : 1 coincidence, Blank's manic main competitor (brilliant Dan Ackroyd) happens to have a contract on this dude.
I'm not saying that that one scene broke the movie; but there are plenty other scenes like that, which makes the script a bit too dumb and forceful for my taste. But if you manage to switch your cerebrum one notch back and just go with the flow, and if black comedy is up your street, then you won't regret checking this one out.