The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)    New Line/Action-Thriller    RT: 121 minutes    Rated R (language, strong bloody violence)    Director: Renny Harlin    Screenplay: Shane Black    Music: Alan Silvestri    Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro    Release date: October 11, 1996 (US)    Cast: Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Craig Bierko, Patrick Malahide, Brian Cox, David Morse, Yvonne Zima, G.D. Spradlin, Tom Amandes, Melina Kanakaredes, Joseph McKenna, Alan North, Dan Warry-Smith, Rex Linn, Edwin Hodge, Sharon Washington.    Box Office: $33.4M (US)/$89.4M (World)

 Rating: *** ½

 There’s nothing like surrendering yourself to a supremely silly action flick on a Saturday night, be it at the multiplex or at home riding the couch. As long as it contains copious amounts of action, violence, mayhem and destruction, who cares whether or not it’s believable?

 It’s in this frame of mind that one must approach The Long Kiss Goodnight, an actioner that has all that and more. Directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2), it stars his then-wife Geena Davis (Thelma and Louise) as an amnesiac schoolteacher who discovers she used to be an expert CIA assassin. Ah yes, our old friend amnesia! A catch-all plot device older than cinema itself, used to explain away many an implausibility.

  So it is that we accept the far-fetched premise of The Long Kiss Goodnight and Davis as a deadly, ass-kicking heroine. I saw this at an advance screening and the audience (a full house) seemed to love it. It received such a positive response, I’m surprised it didn’t do better box office, but I’m wondering if that has to do with the previous Davis-Harlin collaboration, the bloated pirate adventure Cutthroat Island (1995). As you may recall, the $98 million bomb sank at the box office and took Carolco Pictures down with it. Perhaps this was still fresh in the minds of moviegoers when New Line released The Long Kiss Goodnight less than a year later. Too bad, they missed out on a fun movie.

 Set at Christmastime, grade school teacher Samantha Caine (Davis) resides in a small Pennsylvania town with her boyfriend Hal (Amandes, Everwood) and 8YO daughter Kaitlin (Zima). She has absolutely no memory of her life prior to being found washed ashore on a New Jersey beach eight years before. Unfortunately, others do remember who she was and would rather she remain dead (or so they think). She’s hired private investigators, the latest being ex-cop-turned-ex-con Mitch Henessey (Jackson, Pulp Fiction), to look into her past to no avail.

 Then a couple of things happen. First, a prison inmate goes berserk after spotting her on TV riding a float in the town’s annual Christmas parade and escapes. Second, she gets into a car accident and suffers a concussion. Apparently, it knocks something loose because suddenly she has mad skills with a kitchen knife. When the escaped inmate shows up at her house, she easily subdues and kills him. Meanwhile, Mitch has a lead on her true identity, so the pair hit the road to follow the clues found in a suitcase. Long story short, her real name is Charly Baltimore (LOVE that name!), she’s a deadly assassin and several sinister government people want her dead, chiefly a psych-op specialist (Bierko, ‘Til There Was You).

 Not a single frame of The Long Kiss Goodnight is even remotely believable, but isn’t that the point of going to the movies? Generally speaking, most movies need to be grounded in some form of reality to work, but that doesn’t apply to action movies, especially the ones that go about their business on a large scale (e.g. Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Rock, Con Air, etc.).

 There are shoot-outs and explosions aplenty in The Long Kiss Goodnight; Harlin knows exactly what he’s doing here and does it very well. The only real complaint I have is that it’s a bit uneven with its torture scenes. Now it’s getting into Mel Gibson territory. But it gets right back on track with an even more pissed-off heroine.

 Speaking of which, with movies like Beetlejuice, The Accidental Tourist and Earth Girls Are Easy to her credit, Davis seems an unlikely choice to play such a role. Who would imagine that beneath that silly, quirky exterior lies a real bad ass? It shouldn’t work, but within the context of the genre, it does. When she finally realizes who she is and embraces her old identity, it’s a cool transformation. Also, she and Jackson have real chemistry together. He’s awesome in pretty much everything and The Long Kiss Goodnight is no exception. Bierko overacts, but still makes a sufficiently despicable villain. Brian Cox (Manhunter) and David Morse (The Rock) do well in small but significant roles.

The Long Kiss Goodnight is an exciting movie with well-orchestrated action scenes and an explosive climax on a Niagara Falls bridge. I also like the soundtrack with great 70s songs like “Lady Marmalade” (LaBelle), “She’s Not There” (Santana version) and “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” (England Dan and John Ford Coley), the last providing the basis for a humorous conversation regarding its lyrics. For the record, the line is “I’m not talking about moving in.” NOT “the linen”.

 The Long Kiss Goodnight really is one the best unsung action flicks of the 90s, a decade when a movie like this could still work. Today, it would just be a joyless, humorless PG-13 rated action vehicle bearing closer resemblance to a video game than a real movie. So much for progress.