{"id":7744,"date":"2024-10-30T23:32:41","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7744"},"modified":"2024-10-30T23:32:41","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:32:41","slug":"the-long-kiss-goodnight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/30\/the-long-kiss-goodnight\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long Kiss Goodnight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Long Kiss Goodnight <\/strong>(1996)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 121 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong bloody violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Renny Harlin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Shane Black\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Alan Silvestri\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: October 11, 1996 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $33.4M (US)\/$89.4M (World)<\/p>\n

\u00a0Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s 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\u2019s believable?<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s in this frame of mind that one must approach The Long Kiss Goodnight<\/strong>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0So it is that we accept the far-fetched premise of The Long Kiss Goodnight<\/strong> 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\u2019m surprised it didn\u2019t do better box office, but I\u2019m 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<\/strong> less than a year later. Too bad, they missed out on a fun movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Set 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\u2019s hired private investigators, the latest being ex-cop-turned-ex-con Mitch Henessey (Jackson, Pulp Fiction), to look into her past to no avail.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Then a couple of things happen. First, a prison inmate goes berserk after spotting her on TV riding a float in the town\u2019s 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\u2019s a deadly assassin and several sinister government people want her dead, chiefly a psych-op specialist (Bierko, \u2018Til There Was You).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not a single frame of The Long Kiss Goodnight<\/strong> is even remotely believable, but isn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.).<\/p>\n

\u00a0There are shoot-outs and explosions aplenty in The Long Kiss Goodnight<\/strong>; Harlin knows exactly what he\u2019s doing here and does it very well. The only real complaint I have is that it\u2019s a bit uneven with its torture scenes. Now it\u2019s getting into Mel Gibson territory. But it gets right back on track with an even more pissed-off heroine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Speaking 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\u2019t work, but within the context of the genre, it does. When she finally realizes who she is and embraces her old identity, it\u2019s a cool transformation. Also, she and Jackson have real chemistry together. He\u2019s awesome in pretty much everything and The Long Kiss Goodnight<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

The Long Kiss Goodnight<\/strong> 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 \u201cLady Marmalade\u201d (LaBelle), \u201cShe\u2019s Not There\u201d (Santana version) and \u201cI\u2019d Really Love to See You Tonight\u201d (England Dan and John Ford Coley), the last providing the basis for a humorous conversation regarding its lyrics. For the record, the line is \u201cI\u2019m not talking about moving in<\/em>.\u201d NOT \u201cthe linen\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Long Kiss Goodnight<\/strong> 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.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New Line\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 121 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong bloody violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Renny Harlin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Shane Black\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Alan Silvestri\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: October 11, 1996 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Craig Bierko, Patrick Malahide, Brian Cox, David Morse, Yvonne Zima, G.D. Spradlin, Tom Amandes, Melina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holiday-movies","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/The-Long-Kiss-Goodnight-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7744"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7933,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7744\/revisions\/7933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}