GROSSE POINTE BLANK (73)

Directed by: George Armitage

Starring: John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd, Alan Arkin, Hank Azaria

The Pitch: Professional killer Martin Blank is invited to his high school's ten-year reunion.

Theo Sez: A great movie ; now if only it was just a little bit better...The first half especially has some awkward passages, perched uneasily between wry observation and zany black comedy - Blank's former classmates, for example, clearly there to provide a straight-arrow contrast to his unconventional profession, also seem a little flaky, their lines too off-centre ("this badge isn't really a meaningful symbol") ; you get the feeling the film is unable to let go of its smart-ass "quirkiness", even for a moment - like its soundtrack, featuring the likes of The Jam and The Specials, it seems just a bit too hip for its own good. Everything changes with the reunion itself, a brilliantly satirical set-piece in which brittle cleverness gives way to sharp, poignant observation (and the music changes to reflect the fact that, whether we like it or not, the true 80s soundtrack to our lives isn't The Clash but "Take On Me" and "99 Red Balloons"). It's a reflection of the film's greatest achievement, the way it burrows into rarefied, playfully cerebral comedy (characters using words like "intractable" and "dispassionate", a hitman told that the contract he was interested in is unfortunately being "serviced by an alternate vendor") to somehow find a startling picture of existential crisis, a single man in his late twenties wondering where his life is going and still trying to work out his priorities - unsure if he likes his job, trying to balance his work with his principles, shying away from relationships, afraid of commitment. Somewhere between the farcical bullet-dodging and the gag about the killer who lists his interests as "Native American art, ballroom dancing, pornography", it suddenly occurs to you that the film is actually serious about its hero's dilemmas, and that Cusack is giving one of the year's finest, most deeply-felt performances : his yearning, desperate expression as he gingerly tries to hold a baby or repeats to himself in the mirror his drug-addled mother's question - "You're a handsome devil. What's your name?" - is just heartbreaking. It's a funny movie, and it's more than that ; if I had to summarise my life (and, I suspect, most other people's lives) in five words, I couldn't possibly improve on Blank's weary encapsulation : "You happy?" "Kinda." "Really?" "Sorta."