A professional killer returns to his home town for his high school reunion in this clever action comedy. Featuring snappy dialogue, a clever script, and great performances by Dan Aykroyd, Joan Cusack, and Alan Arkin, the soundtrack is an uncredited character in this film. Songs by The Clash, Violent Femmes, The Jam, The Specials, Echo and the Bunnymen, Pixies, Motorhead, The Cure, Tones On Tail, and Siouxsie and the Banshees play throughout...
Hold on a minute. Let's be really honest about why I chose to review this film. My 90th high school reunion takes place in about a month. I'm choosing not to attend. There's been a lot of water under the bridge since I graduated from Miskatonik High. Murky, filthy, polluted water. But that's neither here nor there. I've taken the past few months to try to eat better, lose a few pounds, and generally tighten everything up. That means about an hour a day of cardio, pushups, and T25. I've been eating fewer snack cakes, and eating more fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and leafy greens. I feel pretty good. My back issues are better. I've had to get some skinny jeans because my other jeans didn't fit right.
Plus, I've been training like Batman, except I don't really see myself so much as a superhero, but more as a super villain. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any fitness programs dedicated to the super villain.
Why am I doing this, you ask? Easy. I am completely shallow. Since I wasn't exactly Homecoming King, it's extremely important to me to be the coolest, fittest, and hippest graduate not attending the reunion in an attempt to fill people I haven't seen or care to see in decades with unfathomable envy. It's been quite a motivator. If living well is the best revenge, and revenge is a dish best served cold, I'll take two scoops of living well in a waffle cone.
Anyway, I very much enjoyed the slight dig the filmmakers made as Minnie Driver and John Cusack's characters are all associated with the cooler music, and the bland, disposable extras are all forced to dance to Nena's "99 Luftballons". I've probably said it, like, a million times before, but it really bothers me when sweet jams get appropriated by the uncool. I remember the 80s. It's a bit hazy, but I remember it. People did not walk down the street sporting A Flock Of Seagulls haircuts.
Only the misfits and outcasts had the nerve to do that. The people who had A Flock Of Seagulls haircuts don't man the booth handing out name tags at high school reunions. Heck, they breathed so much Aqua-Net they probably don't remember they attended high school. I know I don't. My point is everybody didn't look like Kurt Cobain in the 90s, KC and the Sunshine Band in the 70s, or Jimi Hendrix in the 60s. Everybody pretty much look like they always do, only the pant-legs and sideburns got a little wider. Everyone only remembers the freaks whose hair looked like poultry. So I'm annoyed when someone who had a Don Henley 1980s starts misremembering that time they had a Dead Kenndys 1980s when they didn't have the nerve to, when in actuality they were jamming out to Dionne Warwick's "That's What Friends Are For" wearing a button-down shirt with a sweater tied nonchalantly around their necks.
Everyone who enjoyed Mr. Aker Bilk, Starland Vocal Band, Billy Ocean, and Nickleback needs to just own it, and stop appropriating sweet jams as their own because they think everybody forgot, because I haven't and I won't.
Anyway, I find it completely surprising that John Cusack found a way to do a little kickboxing in Grosse Pointe Blank, and by that I mean I'm surprised Grosse Pointe Blank wasn't ALL kickboxing.
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