Grosse Pointe Blank

Grosse Point Blank (1997) feels to me like something of an outlier in 90’s cinema. A brutally black comedy about a hitman returning to his hometown for his high school reunion, it also possesses what can only be described from a distance of nearly twenty-five years as two tiers of nostalgia. The setting is the mid to late 1990’s but, by virtue of the plot it also has one foot set firmly in the 1980’s. Indeed, given that there were two volumes released of the soundtrack album, it might even be argued that it helped kickstart the 80’s revival that has so far lasted over a decade longer than the original decade itself.

However, this is not the only way that this understated and underrated classic still resonates with modern audiences and sensibilities. Beyond the undoubted cool of the looks and sounds that shape and underscore the film is a heart that can offer hope of change through an examination of who we are as people, why we are the way we are and whether we might still be something more.

The closest observation of this comes in the form of the wonderfully named Martin Q. Blank (John Cusack). Martin is an assassin, he dresses like an assassin, he eats like an assassin, he justifies killing people in the dispassionate way an assassin would (‘If I show up on your door there’s something that brought me there’), he works with only one associate, he does not have friends. Something is wrong though. He is slick, well prepared for each job, but things keep going wrong.

He is in the middle of a personal crisis and even seeing a therapist is not helping. Part of the problem is that Martin told Dr Oatman what his job was and as a result the therapist no longer wants to treat him – ‘We have a personal relationship…’ he tells Martin, ‘I’m afraid of you.’ This interaction is part of a running theme in the film where Martin’s assassination targets assume he has a personal stake in killing them.

‘It’s not me,’ he says, more than once and he is right. He is not someone, despite his best efforts who can be defined by the awful job he does. The sense throughout is that he would prefer it if he were. We learn, in an understated way that he had a less than wonderful childhood. His father was an alcoholic and it seems clear that he was abusive too. As a result, a retreat into childhood – for example the music of the eighties that plays throughout the film or by simply picking up where he left off with Debbie (his ex-girlfriend that he stood up at prom) is off limits to him. Too much has changed even though he may not like what it has changed into.

Whether or not that is a bad thing is unclear. What the High School reunion suggests is that there are only limited ways that those present see themselves. They are either the job they do – ‘Debbie Radio,’ as Bob Destepello, Martin’s high school nemesis drunkenly describes Martin’s old girlfriend who is a DJ at the local radio station – or they revert back to how they were at high school.

Debbie herself has moved back into her Dad’s old house after the breakup of her marriage and is even sleeping in her childhood bedroom. This presents her in the film as being both these things simultaneously. Martin meanwhile, lives up to his surname but not being defined by how he was at high school or by his job and that makes the two of them a fascinating combination and juxtaposition throughout.

While Debbie has been able to go ‘home’ Martin does not have that option. His family home has been turned into a supermarket – as he says ‘You can’t go home again… But I guess you can shop there.’ His mother meanwhile is in a care home and is suffering from dementia, even forgetting who Martin is midway through a conversation, ‘You’re a handsome devil, what’s your name?’ she asks him. He does not answer. He is not able to when he does not know himself since memory is such an intrinsic part of what we are and how we can define ourselves in a positive way.

That is a privilege removed from Martin Blank and his mother and the only difference is that Martin still has the chance to move away from the choices of the past and to redefine himself in a different way to what has gone before. Because he cannot go back he ultimately has to move forward.

There is so much more to the film, with the richness of the writing, especially in the subplots involving other hitmen and the FBI agents trailing Martin throughout, which, combined with a spectacular cast make an intoxicating mix. In a lot of ways, it is like watching a Rom-Com written by Albert Camus, which brilliantly shows us that it is possible to move beyond the pain of our past and the horrors of our present and find a potentially brighter future before us.