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nTitle: The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
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nDirector: Renny Harlin
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nCast: Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Brian Cox, DavidnMorse, Craig Bierko
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nReview:
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nThe deal with The Long Kiss Goodnight is that it’s the kindnof movie that makes you wonder why it tanked at the box office in such a bignway. I mean, here’s a film that’s action packed, fast paced, has a great cast,nand is quite frankly pure adrenaline filled fun, yet it didn’t manage to get audiences’nbutts to the theater. There are a few reasons that we can blame for that, but I’llnget into them later. I hadn’t seen The Long Kiss Goodnight in such a long timenthat I decided to give it the old re-watch/reassessment, just because ShanenBlack is back on the radar writing and directing big budget action films likenIron Man 3 (2013). You see, Shane Black got a lot of heat for selling thenscript for The Long Kiss Goodnight for four million dollars! He suddenly becamenthe highest paid writer in Hollywood, but also one of the most hated. I chalknit up to jealousy, anybody who is offered that much money for writing an actionnfilm is going to take the money! I know I would! The ones spewing the hatrednwere just jealous it wasn’t them getting paid four million dollars, that’s all.nSo this movie is notoriously famous for that alone; but also because it was a huge flop. Afternthis movie tanked the way it did, Shane Black went into hibernation, hidingnaway from Hollywood. Did The Long Kiss Goodnight deserve to flop so hard? Does thenfilm stand the test of time? I say hells yeah! I’m glad I bought this one andnre-watched it, its fun times all the way!
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nOn this one we meet Samantha Caine, a school teacher and anmother. She’s on the PTA and all that,nshe’s the perfect house wife/mom type of deal. But there’s one problem though,nshe can’t remember who she used to be. Two years prior, she woke up on a beach,nhalf dead, unable to recall who she was before that, so she started a new life,na quiet life in the suburbs. Yet slowly but surely, in subtle ways, her oldnself is resurfacing. She has nightmares in which a mirror image of herselfntells her that her real name is Charlie and that Charlie is “coming back!” Samanthansuddenly becomes quite skilled at throwing knifes! Suddenly she’ll have thesenshort outbursts of anger and tells her daughter to stop being such a baby! Shentells her “life is pain! Get used to it!” These are all things she puts to thenside and tries to ignore; she just tries to continue with her normal suburban life.nThe real problems start when a gang of thugs, dressed as Christmas carolers comenknocking at her door shooting at her and her family with machine guns! Why do these guys want herndead? Who was she before being picture perfect mommy?
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nThe Long Kiss Goodnight got a bad rap for a couple ofnreasons, number one being that this was the film that Renny Harlin directednafter Cutthroat Island (1995), a film that was one of the biggest flops inncinematic history. Just so you get an idea of what kind of a flop CutthroatnIsland was, it cost 98 million dollars yet made back only about 11 million atnthe box office! Dang, now that’s what I call a major flop! So anyhow, apparentlynaudiences didn’t trust Harlin as a director because he’d done that “awful”npirate movie that turned out to be one of the biggest turkeys ever. OnnCutthroat Islands’ behalf I will say that I never understood why it failed, Inthink that movie was huge fun as well. I mean, it was no less fun than thosenPirates of the Caribbean movies that are so popular nowadays. I guess it wasnjust the wrong time, or the wrong cast, or whatever. Who knows why audiencesnend up collectively turning their backs on a given project, sometimes it’s the stupidestnof things. But in the case of The Long Kiss Goodnight, its failure probablyncame as a result of Cutthroat Islands colossal downfall. In Shane Black’s ownnwords “I wish The Long Kiss Goodnight hadn’t been released after CutthroatnIsland” Worldwide The Long Kiss Goodnight made close to 90 million, butndomestically it didn’t even make half of its 65 million budget back.
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nSad story too because this movie is a lot of fun, as annaction movie, it hits all the right buttons. First we have that intrigue ofnSamantha having a second personality buried deep within her psyche, this sidenof the story is always fun because you just know that that second personalitynis gonna come bursting out at some point. In that sense it reminded me ofnAngelina Jolie in SALT (2010), a deadly female fatale who doesn’t quite understandnher full potential…yet. Geena Davis is fantastic on this one, she plays theninnocent, beautiful wife/mom, living the family life, then suddenly she doesnthe 180 and turns into a hellish top secret agent who can kill you with hernbreath. She turns into a full blown action star on this one! I loved seeingnGeena Davis with blond hair, lots of eye liner, holding a machine gun, shootingnit with a mean look on her face! She looked freaking great! Mrs. Davis went onnto state that she did most of her own stunts on this show, pretty impressive ifnyou ask me! As Samuel Jackson’s character ‘Mitch’ puts it: “What I’m saying is,nback when we first met you were all like “Oh Phooey! I burned the darnednmuffins!” Now you go into a bar, ten minutes later, sailors come running out,nwhat up with that? ” I enjoyed that double personality twist. Mrs. Davis wasnmarried to Renny Harlin the director of this film; so Cutthroat Island and ThenLong Kiss Goodnight signified two back to back turkeys on Mrs. Davis’s resume,nworst part is they were both directed by her husband! Kind of makes sense thatntwo years later they divorced.
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nBut all that bull crap aside, I’m of the opinion this movienshouldn’t have tanked at all. The last half hour of this movie is nonstopnaction! Seriously, it’s a barrage of huge explosions, machine guns, cars flyingnthrough the air as they burst into flames….I mean, this one has one explosive ending! Thisnmovie is so much fun that both Harlin and Jackson have stated that out of all thenfilms they’ve made, this is their favorite. One thing I found interesting aboutnthe script is how the bad guys are trying to pull off a 9/11 by planning a terroristnattack that they will blame on the Muslims, just so they can get more fundingnfor their own purposes! I was like damn; did Shane Black have a magic ball thatncould look a couple of years into the future when he wrote this? Freakingnweird! But thinking back a bit, Mr. Black was probably commenting a bit on thenterrorist bombing that occurred on the World Trade Center in 1993, remembernthat one?
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nDirecting wise, I think Harlin did a great job. This is andirector whose films I’ve always enjoyed. He was responsible for Nightmare onnElm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), the most successful Nightmare on ElmnStreet film of them all. He also made Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990), a worthynsequel to the original and he had a taste of big time success when he made Cliffhangern(1993) with Sylvester Stallone. His career started going down after he didnthese two huge flops, but they were films that flopped for all the wrongnreasons. I’ve seen far worse movies then these make gazillions at the boxnoffice, so let’s just chalk these two back to back bombs to bad circumstances. Harlin’sncareer never quite recuperated from that blow, he ended up directing truly badnfilms like Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) and The Convenant (2006). But back innhis glory days, the guy was on fire! As it is, The Long Kiss Goodnight is sonfast paced that I don’t think there’s a shot in the film that lasts more then 3nto 4 seconds! Literally! The only flaw I can find is that sometimes we go fromnplot point to plot point a bit too fast, so much so that sometimes you feelnlike there’s a gap in there somewhere, but overall, even with these fewnhiccups, the film is unabashedly entertaining. Recommend it for a night of overnthe top fun!
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nRating : 4 out of 5
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