#23 — The Long Kiss Goodnight
This is an ongoing, illustrated countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies. Last week I talked about a modern classic that became the standard-bearer for a new era — The Raid.
I love the title of this movie and I don’t fully understand what it means. A long kiss goodnight seems like it would be nice, but this one involves lots of murder and explosions to save the ones you’d want to kiss — so maybe it’s about the struggle and satisfaction to achieve a life of love and comfort. Or maybe this particular kiss is laced with dynamite and it’s a sweet goodbye to old enemies. Goodnight, jerk, but also let me savor this for a minute or two. It’s evocative, very noir-ish. Makes me think of “The Long Goodbye”, another great movie title that conjures the same feelings.
The kiss in question is most likely for Samantha Caine (Geena Davis), who needs to put her old identity as a government super assassin to rest so she can have a normal, stable life with her family. But before she can do that, she has to stop all these evil loose ends from her past — by kissing them goodnight, you know what I mean? There’s good kisses and bad ones, so this is like a Bourne Identity situation with lots of metaphorical kissing, and jokes. Kisses, friendship, explosions. It’s like a really exciting, funny, actually good Hallmark movie.
Geena Davis plays a dual role as the mom next door, but also government super assassin. She’s really great at both, and I love how the movie skips between silly and serious in the same way that old school campy horror films did. She kills a guy in her kitchen and then licks pie filling off her fingertips because “chefs do that”. Jason Bourne would never. After a car accident unlocks buried memories, she sees her former self, “Charly” Baltimore, in a mirror. There’s dramatic thunder and lightning. Charly has bleach blonde hair and smokes a cigarette. It’s something that would fit right in with an older Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson movie. She was in Beetlejuice, so this is completely within her wheelhouse.
I think it’s good that she doesn’t seem afraid of her rediscovered abilities. She’s knows what she is and she’ll make peace with her past when she has the time to kick her feet up. Her first priority is saving her daughter and stopping a crazy-eyed Craig Bierko. There’s no time to be weepy about being a former government assassin. There’s some parallels to The Bride from Kill Bill, who is told by the man in her life that she’s only got this one thing she’s good at, so she should probably stick to that (and him). Oh, and he kidnaps her daughter too. These guys love doing that for some reason. I’d tell you what she does to Bill, but I don’t want to spoil the movie.
Samantha Caine also gets a partner to tag along who’s very good because he’s Samuel L. Jackson, and his characters name is Mitch Henessey. He’s a private investigator that likes to sing about whatever he’s doing, like where he put his car keys, and he will absolutely take a bullet for his pals. He should have his own multi-film franchise. David Morse and Brian Cox also get to appear in a handful of scenes, and they make an immediate impression, because Shane Black doesn’t let precious resources go to waste.
Renny Harlin directed this, and it’s as good as anything he’s ever done. It’s rowdy and fast-paced, and ends with one of the biggest explosions I’ve ever seen. Having said that, it’d probably only be remembered for the fireworks show on the bridge, if it weren’t for Black’s vibrant characters elevating everything. It turns into a pretty good marriage. There’s a clear chemistry with the two leads, but also an underlying warmth to their characters. They’re fighting for things like family, reconciliation, and hope for a better future. It’s almost like a Christmas movie. I’ve heard this Shane Black has a history of doing that.
