Directed by Renny Harlin, written by Shane Black, starring Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Malahide, Craig Bierko, Brian Cox, David Morse
Trap: Well, I guess all those years of watching Hong Kong action movies have taken their psychic toll – I suppose I’m predisposed to think that the only thing sexier than a beautiful woman with some sort of complicated automatic weapon is one with a chainsaw. And although she doesn’t use one in THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, Geena Davis does manage to pull just about every other sort of armament on a variety of hapless male costars in this enjoyably preposterous tale of an amnesiac New England housewife who discovers after eight years of happy oblivion that she’s really a government-trained assassin -- hey, it could happen, right? -- and must then outwit an assortment of revenge-bent villains from her dimly-remembered past with only a stereotypical two-bit private eye (unstereotypically played by Samuel L. Jackson) to help her. Given that this was written by Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout) and directed by Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, and the egregious Cutthroat Island), neither of whom are ever likely to be accused of having a particularly subtle touch, I still thought this was a lot better than I expected it to be.
Bluesy: That’s funny, I thought it was a lot worse than I expected it to be. In fact, I’m really bummed. I expected to really like this film, if for no other reason than it’s been touted as revolutionary by having a woman in the traditional "blow ‘em away by any bloody means" hero role. But my gut reaction, after leaving the theatre was that akin to going to a museum to see the Mona Lisa, only to find some of the numbers showing through underneath it. If this is what Hollywood thinks is the solution to the lack of strong female characters, I think we’re all in trouble. At least those women searching for a little equal time in our entertainment.
Within the first half hour, I kept thinking to myself, "Hey, I’ve seen this before… and I’ve seen it better." I was thinking of LA FEMME NIKITA, of course. The original Luc Besson version, not the watered down John Badham version. Anne Parillaud’s character was also an assassin, also better than most of the guys with the edge of using her sexuality as a strength. Geena Davis’s "Charley Baltimore" however, seemed more like somebody rewrote a Bruce Willis role in order to make this film a novelty. Sure, the filmmakers try to convince us that it’s her "maternal instinct" that makes her redeemable, or at least should make her redeemable in our eyes. But I just didn’t buy it. There were too many inconsistencies, way too much glib banter (somebody should make a new rule in hollywood, a character only gets 4 smart ass lines per minute… it might make suspension of disbelief a bit easier to come by, and far less grating), plot holes the size of Montana and a tone that vacillated between moody to comic book to spaghetti western more times than the inherent body count. The whole thing really seemed to me like some frat boy’s fantasy of what it would be like if James Bond were a girl, except the girl doesn’t really get to BE James Bond – in this one, the Bond Girl gets to grab herself an Uzi and save the day. Also, I think if there was more line referring to the size of Gina Davis’s ass, I think I might’ve vomited. If the studio’s think they’re saying "We’ve come a long way baby" with this one, I’d say we’ve got one helluva long way to go.
Trap: Well, I’ll grant you that the filmmakers ultimately seem less comfortable with the notion of a female action hero than their European or Hong Kong counterparts (for a real kick-ass, take-no-prisoners portrayal, check out Brigitte Lin in The Bride with White Hair or Swordsman II or III, or Michelle Kahn, who manages to hold her own against Jackie Chan in the recent Supercop) or even in such pioneering American efforts as Aliens. Nevertheless, though, I thought they did manage to stay true to their original concept – ultimately Charley gets herself out of her predicament on her own initiative, rather than finally being rescued by a male costar, as is more often the case – even if the means by which she does so would seem more at home in a Roadrunner cartoon than in anything even remotely suggestive of real life. Admittedly they do back down when it comes to depicting her sexuality (a potential romance between her and Jackson is dispensed with almost as soon as it raises its, uh, head), but that’s a failing it has in common with any number of American films – which are much more comfortable with violence than with sex.
Still, this is a lot of weight to lay on so frail a cinematic reed as this one. The Long Kiss Goodnight (what is this title supposed to mean anyway? Or is it just supposed to evoke any number of – probably better – thrillers that the audience has already seen?) is not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but a better-than-average popcorn picture with an amusing twist to it – nothing more or less. Harlin – whose films I’ve generally detested in the past – while no great shakes as a stylist (he certainly has none of the lyricism of a Peckinpah or Woo) at least here shows a certain crude urgency that keeps things moving fast enough for one to safely ignore their fundamental absurdity. And while I still can’t quite believe Geena Davis as the next Arnold Schwartzenegger, her familiar goofy charm gives her a certain plausibility as a fish out of water, and she and Jackson have an easy rapport that gives a plausible emotional core to a film which by rights shouldn’t have one.
Bluesy: And what emotional core would that be? I was searching for one the entire time. I think that’s one of the main problems I had with the film… it was SO predictable, so unemotional, I never had time to care about anyone in this film or even be frightened by them. I knew from the first 15 minutes what the outcome would be. And while that’s not necessarily the worst thing you can say about a popcorn action flick, I would’ve liked to at least care about someone in it. Even the DIE HARD films, which I happen to really love (Harlin directed Die Hard II, as you may remember) had a lot of really fun stuff going on… and I always cared about the hero. I think in those films, less concentration was given to impress you that someone could actually defend themselves so aptly and more emphasis on why you want them to succeed makes the ride a helluva lot more fun. Maybe it’s because the hero is a woman. Maybe they didn’t think people would buy a girl having such good aim and they really wanted to punch that point in. But John McClane was a heck of a lot more charming than "Charley," and even more importantly, the bad guys in those films were a lot more developed and charismatic than any of the several evil torturers in THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT. How many bad guys were there anyway? I felt like we had everyone from the CIA to everyone Charlie slept with that we were supposed to be afraid of, yet none of them were really all that interesting.
Trap: I suppose I could suggest that the shifting cast of interchangeable villains was appropriate for suggesting the morally ambiguous universe into which Charley finds herself thrust, but I suspect that may be beyond my powers of persuasion and I’m not sure I believe it myself, anyway – certainly the introduction of Craig Bierko as her pre-amnesia lover who also turns out to be one of the villains is a plot twist that the filmmakers never quite manage to make work. In the end, I think what we have here is one of those glass half-full/glass half-empty situations – I thought it was an amusing piece of hokum while on the other hand you –
Bluesy: Didn’t.
Bluesy and Trap Rate-a-Flick:
The Long Kiss Goodnight
Insulting 
Amusing
