Grosse Pointe Blank (UK)

I remember first seeing this film by more or less accident by picking it up in Blockbuster, and having no idea what it was about. But it has John Cusack and Minnie Driver in it, so it must be good, I thought.

And the verdict? What a cool film! Cusack is brilliantly cast as the hitman who decides to go back home to his high school re-union after taking off 10 years before (and leaving girlfriend Minnie Driver in the lurch on prom night too). Of course, the real reason he returned home to Grosse Pointe was to do one last hit before retiring and getting a "real" job.

The interaction between Cusack and Dan Aykroyd (who plays a rival hitman) is excellent and very funny. The soundtrack is also brilliant with loads of those cheesy 80`s poprock hits you hoped you`d of forgotten about by now, but end up humming along to.

Features include, Interactive scene access (WOW!) and erm, thats it. But still an excellent film, and worth seeing.

This is an excellently varied film with a bit of everything in it:action, romance, music, comedy and more music.

That`s right there is alot of music in this film and it is all excellent. There must be about 50 different songs in this film and they all attach themselves to thier scenes perfectly.

John Cusack is excellent as the mysterious Martin Blank. He lends a strange surreality to the film as he is such a strange person containing a whole range of characters. Minnie Driver is also great, the same with veteran Dan Akroyd.
This is a truly funny film with a great running joke that isnt even a proper joke but it is just made out to be one. The fact that Martin Blank aknowledges that he wears black clothes because he is a hit man was quite tongue in cheek (and funny).
The action bits are all truly nice and are as if from another, more serious action based film. The fight scene with the pen is remenecent of a gritty kung-fu film as it is so well choreographed and played out brilliantly by John Cusack.
I mainly like this film because it has something for every part of you and every mood you may be in. It supplies the goods to all areas and will apeal to many people because of it.

Grosse Pointe Blank is a fantastic black comedy, that has something for pretty much everyone - gunplay and fist fights for the men, and a love story for the ladies! If you are a fan of John Cusack, I would urge you to see this film if you haven`t already - throughout, he does a fine job of playing a coldblooded hitman going through a midlife crisis and learning that life may just about be worth living after all. Dan Aykroyd also deserves a mention, he plays the psychotic hitman perfectly, and provides lots of comic relief, sometimes without saying a word (witness the look on his face during the last shootout!).

When, oh when, are we going to get a special edition of this film?

This is a great movie (one of my all-time favourites). All the performances are spot on. John Cusack as the disillusioned hit man is outstanding, Minnie Driver was great, Alan Arkin was hilarious as Cusack's psychiatrist, Hank Azaria was also brilliant and I also thought Jeremy Piven as Cusack's old best friend from high school was very funny. And that's not even mentioning Dan Aykroyd as a rival hitman (hint: he's pretty funny too!).

The video transfer is pretty good, and the soundtrack is filled with some great songs. It's just a pity there are no extras… none… not even a trailer… it doesn't even bother to go to the "menu" when I put the disc in, it went straight to the film. How hard would it have been to put some filmographies and a trailer on the disc? At least then I would not have to give one of my favourite films 0/10 for extras.. and you know what makes this even worse? On the inlay card it says - to access Grosse Pointe Blank's special features please press the menu key..