The Long Kiss Goodnight

I was about to go to sleep while I flicked through the channels one last time and happened to catch the beginning of "The Long Kiss Goodnight"- perhaps I missed the first minute or two. But I remembered I had marked the movie to watch and thought what the heck- I'll watch. I can honestly say that I really enjoyed those two hours. The scene with the truck was definitely fun, and at the same time terrifying (as you know the purpose of the truck and who's in it, I won't spoil it for anyone). The humor was great too, and the acting of the four leads (Davis, Jackson, Zima and Bierko) was quite enjoyable- as is this entire film.

Samantha Caine, schoolteacher, mother, suffering from amnesia, suddenly finds the impetus to track down her former life after an attempt is made on her life. It's going to be explosive......

Absolute preposterous nonsense laced with explosions, cringe worthy dialogue and Geena Davis as an all killing assassin bitch. Is it any good? Oh yes indeed! Directed by Mr Unsubtle-Renny Harlin {Davis' then husband} and written by one Shane Black {Lethal Weapon, Last Boy Scout & Kiss Kiss Bang Bang}, is it any wonder that the Long Kiss Goodnight is ear splittingly loud and funny as hell?

Davis plays Sammy "home-maker" Caine who teams up with a superbly seedy Samuel L. Jackson as ex-bent copper, ex-convict, Mitch Henessey. Their mission, which they choose to accept, involves rekindling Samantha's past life as an assassin called Charly Baltimore and unearthing shady government conspiracies. Shot against a bitter winter backdrop on the East Coast, with the Christmas setting oddly adding potency, our wonderful duo take us on one hell of a ride. Davis excels as a sexy action heroine while Jackson is content, and impactingly so, to let Davis basically kick buttocks as he plays perfect side-kick foil. Harlin, this after the critically savaged Cutthroat Island, knows how to construct action scenes, check out the train station scene and a tanker on the run heart pumper. But it's with Shane Black's screenplay that the film primarily entertains. Full of one line zingers and role reversal put downs, you should be laughing as your eyes and ears are assaulted in popcorn bonanza.

Mindless all action fun. 7.5/10

I disagree with the reviewer who said this film is not for the "cerebrally-minded." I happen to be somewhat the cerebral type, and I think this is a great film; I love it and have seen it many times.

For me, the great things about this film add up to a woman with a full-on assertive, resourceful personality. Of course the drama is all about the wonderful mother and teacher discovering something else true about herself - and learning to merge the two once she "remembers herself." In the end, her love for her daughter and the tender nurturing person she is merges with the resourceful assertive person who is willing to fight and not give up. Even her daughter has taken on the "don't give up" when Mom is down. I would think there's a part in many of us women that can relate to all of this. And that might explain the box office failure and the rerun hit: women had to discover what I imagine was billed as a pure action film

Samuel L. Jackson is his own type of hero, flaws and all, and nobody could say enough about him. He's another complex character: down-to-earth with a street reality perspective, lower than the average poor man's detective and fairly desperate himself. And yet heroic in the clinch and full of his own kind of love and respect for what he values in women. He's just the man to take her on, and let her know when she's -not- okay. The characters pair in a sort of perfectly out-of-the-box way. So, this "cerebral type" says that this is great writing in terms of characters and storyline. And the violence is an integral part of those characters and story, not added flash or excitement that doesn't tell us anything about their lives or the urgency of their experiences.

And, last but not least, this is a comedy! Great dialogue (and I don't know who else could have played it like Jackson). So take that glitzy action as part of what makes a comedy work here!

This movie was one of the bridges to the contemporary action movie that has no plot at all and is unabashed about that fact. It is the melding between the 90s attempt at plot and the ever-increasing tendency for all violence all the time with some hot babe shots thrown in. Viewed from the perspective of today's movies with their plasticine-looking heroes and heroines, Davis and Jackson come off as nostalgically genuine and charming.

There are some real laugh out loud moments in this movie, though, and there's a sense of joy in the script and the performances, as if they were having a good time. Action movies/TV today seem like somber enterprises where everyone takes themselves much, much too seriously. (Jennifer Garner projects, for example.)

The movie is a lot of fun and pretends to be nothing else. It was even advertised at the time as a fun movie (tho I've just now watched it, I've seen the previews recently.) I don't understand the poor reviews that seem to compare it to great, serious filmmaking when it was not even marginally aimed at that genre.

Not a box office success; no-one really knows why. It may have failed simply because of its title. It looks as though you need a two-word tough-guy title to attract a sufficient proportion of the idiot crowd - "Die Hard", "Lethal Weapon", "Hard Weapon", "Die Lethal", etc. - talking about "the long kiss goodnight" will get you nowhere. But for once Renny Harlin has made a GOOD action movie. A large part of the reason for this lies in the fact that the central character, Samantha, earns our affection and interest early on. As she becomes Charly again, we're torn: we certainly want Charly to thwart the bad guys, and all that; but we don't want her to lose touch with Samantha in order to do so - even though we like Charly, too. Geena Davis bestows all of her considerable charm on both halves of the central character. Samuel L. Jackson plays second fiddle for a change. It turns out he's good at it. That was a compliment.

Intelligent, far superior to anything in the "Die Hard" series - if I were more cynical I'd add, "it's not surprising that it didn't do well", but I don't really feel that way; it IS surprising that it didn't do well.