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The Long Kiss Goodnight is a transitional film, both for the talented cast and crew that made it and for the American film industry as a whole.
The 1996 release was acknowledged, even at the time, as a perfect slice of 90’s Hollywood action.
It was written by Shane Black (Lethal Weapon), the thinking man’s action movie scribe; Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) was behind the camera and he retains the steady hand for filming slick action that he had demonstrated since he emigrated to America; and the pairing of Samuel L. Jackson and Geena Davis, coming off Pulp Fiction and Thelma and Louise respectfully, was inspired casting.
What limited The Long Kiss Goodnight’s success in its initial run was not a lack of skill, but a fatigue in the audience with a certain kind of big spectacle action picture.
A few years later, films such as Blade, Rush Hour, and The Matrix reinvigorated the genre with the timely additions of high concept science fiction or fantasy plots and Asian influenced high-energy action choreography became the new standard.
Geena Davis stars as Samantha Caine, a schoolteacher and housewife in small-town Pennsylvania. In a clever homage to Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, Caine was found with amnesia washed up on a beach years before the movie’s opening and has searched, in vain, for clues of her life beforehand.
After a car accident results in head trauma, Samantha (now using the name “Charlie Baltimore”) discovers she’s got super spy skills. After an attack on her house by a shotgun toting criminal, she’s forced on the lam with Mitch Henessey (Samuel L. Jackson) the shady private investigator she had hired to look into her past. The two are directed from a note found among her effects to a Dr. Nathan Waldman (Brian Cox) and he turns out to be working with elements in the CIA to precipitate a false flag chemical weapons attack to secure the Agency more funding.
Quips, explosions, and general good mayhem ensue.
As he did with his previous project The Last Boy Scout, Shane Black crafts a very punchy, self-aware, metatextual action movie with some light film noir touches. The key touch that helps this movie stay strong is that, as with Scream, all the meta-comedy is ensconced in a story that takes the dangers and threats seriously, and has fresh ideas for big set pieces. So you’re watching this big time fun action movie and you get the bonus of comedy that actually lands. Too many action movies now use the comedy as a pass for cliche, as if to say “Well, don’t take it too seriously– after all, we didn’t.”
Going in for this rewatch, I expected director Renny Harlin to be the weak link, as his career took a nosedive after this film, but this is definitely a film made in the mold of hits like Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger– clean, legible action that has style and where speed changes never disrupt the flow of the choreography so you can always tell what’s going on.
He also instinctively knows when not to get in the comedy’s way – every exposition scene in this film is also genuinely funny– and when to heighten moments of Hitchcockian irony, like the Christmas carolers providing cover for a hitman, early on.
The movie works best as a result of Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson’s chemistry, and it’s easy to see why both lead actors commonly cite this as one of their favorite films they’ve worked on. This could have been a straight road trip comedy between the two, so strong are their comedic instincts with one another.
You can see the genesis between Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer’s rapport in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang in this film with jokes that almost work as meta-commentary on typical tough guy action movie patter.
In the moment of release The Long Kiss Goodnight got lost in the shuffle: it seemed too conventional to catch the eye of a big audience that was looking for the next big thing. However, thirty years on this is a shining example of the kind of big budget action-comedy that Hollywood used to produce seemingly effortlessly.
It holds up. It actually looks and sounds better than any previous release.
Extras include audio commentaries, featurettes, interviews, deleted scenes, visual essays, archival interviews, image gallery, and trailer.
Recommended.
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