04/11/97
MOVIE REVIEW: Grosse Pointe Blank
Comedy loaded but shoots only blanks

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

** (out of five)
Starring John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Joan Cusack. A Hollywood Pictures release written by Tom Jankiewicz, D.V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink and John Cusack, directed by George Armitage. Rated R, contains violence, profanity. Running time: 107 minutes.

Despite several running gun battles, Grosse Pointe Blank shoots mostly blanks in a film that says you can go home again, but you might get shot at.

The cool John Cusack plays an international hit man for hire whose latest assignment brings him to the ritzy Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe the same weekend of his 10th high school reunion there.

Cusack's Martin Blank, under pressure from a competitor (Dan Aykroyd) and under the gun after he botches a murder, figures it would be a good weekend to get out of Los Angeles, pull his job in Grosse Pointe and maybe rekindle some sparks with the girlfriend he left on the night of the senior prom. Unfortunately he's trailed his rival's gang of assassins and by a couple of government operatives, who've been ordered to terminate him after he eliminates his target.

It's a cute idea with some clever lines, but it never catches fire. What should be among the film's funniest moments -- Martin's high school reunion where he compares notes with old acquaintances -- is excrutiatingly drawn out. It's like being forced to attend a high school reunion where you don't know anyone. Grosse Pointe Blank dawdles when it should soar. Even a murder during the reunion fails to ignite the script. If anything, Martin seems a crueler character for it.

One of the problems with the film is that Martin is amoral. He thinks of his job as just another profession. By the time of his inevitable redemption, it's too late for him to pull us into the film and to pull for him. It doesn't help that there's little chemistry between Cusack and perky Minnie Driver, who plays the girl Martin left waiting at home on prom night 10 years before. Nor do Cusack and Aykroyd create much zip.

His best relationship is with sister Joan Cusack, who plays his Girl Friday back in the L.A. office, which looks like something left over from a 1940s Sam Spade detective movie. Although they never meet face to face on screen, their phone conversations are snappy and sassy. Joan Cusack can switch gears for funny results -- one moment her character is dictating a recipe to a friend; the next she's swearing at someone who hasn't deliverd a weapons shipment promptly.

Alan Arkin also scores points as Martin's psychiatrist who's scared by his patient's line of work. Mostly Arkin connects with Martin by phone, too. Perhaps they should have phoned the whole movie in.

The film's violent shootouts are standard action fare that liven things up some. A highlight is a raging gun battle at a convenience store while an oblivious teenager wearing earphones plays a video game. The film has its share of clever twists, too. And the lively soundtrack is revved up by the music of several hot bands. Yet Grosse Pointe Blank remains too small, too remote and too slow for it to really get rolling.