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All Movie Info
Starring:
Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Craig Bierko, Tom Amandes, Brian Cox, Patrick Malahide, David Morse, Melina Kanakaredes, Yvonne Zima, Yvonne Zima, Joseph McKenna, Dan Warry-Smith
Directed By:
Renny Harlin
Written By:
Shane Black
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The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
July 12th, 2008
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In 'The Long Kiss Goodnight', Geena Davis plays Samantha Caine, who is essentially a female version of Jason Bourne. She has amnesia, but has constructed a false identity for herself after she woke up eight years ago on a beach somewhere, two months pregnant. She is a schoolteacher, is happily married and raising her daughter, Caitlin (Yvonne Zima). But she is plagued by vivid and troubling dreams that drop hints about her past, and she gradually rediscovers her deadly combat abilities, both martial arts and a deft handling of firearms. Her real name is Charly Baltimore, and she is, of course, a trained government assassin, who disappeared during her last mission, in which she was to eliminate Daedalus (David Morse), a notorious weapons dealer. She tracks him down under the mistaken impression that he was once her fiancé. This is after she has gone on a journey with Mitch Henessey (Samuel L Jackson), a former cop who is now a low-rent crook, a scam artist, who brings toys and other presents to his son, while his ex-wife regards them with suspicion. It is never fully explained how Henessey knows Samantha, or why he chooses to help her, but the two of them make for a dynamic pair, with excellent chemistry that is similar to what Jackson had with Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance. Henessey is an entertaining character, with several memorable lines, all delivered with typical Jackson style and attitude. Once Samantha transforms back into Charly, she is a real bad-ass, but loses much of what made her human; her emotions are suppressed, and she no longer cares whether or not she sees Caitlin again. She does not want to go back to her previous life. She discovers that her superiors have betrayed her and are trying to kill her, with the eager assistance of an old nemesis, Timothy (Craig Bierko), one of Daedalus' men, who was supposed to have finished Charly off all those years ago.
Charly had an intimate relationship with Timothy, actually more of a one-night stand, and this leads to a late plot revelation that is virtually meaningless, except that it clearly illustrates what should already be obvious, that Timothy is a conscienceless psychopath. Brian Cox is Walderman, who was Charly's mentor and trainer; he is there to explain what happened to her, and then exits the story once he has served this purpose. This is not a movie that requires a lot of thought; what it offers is a bunch of high-octane action sequences, featuring bullets, explosions, and car chases. Davis delivers a wonderfully convincing and compelling performance, first as Samantha and then especially as Charly, and then as the woman that emerges from the fusion of both personas. There are some surprisingly touching moments between Davis and Zima, after Caitlin is kidnapped by Timothy in an effort to draw Charly out into the open. Once reunited, Charly realizes how much she loves Caitlin, and the girl reciprocates the affection, despite how coldly her mother has treated her, abandoning her only a few days before Christmas with no plans to come back. Caitlin is still young enough to forgive this; if she had been a teenager, reconciliation would have been much more difficult.
Bierko provides a satisfyingly nasty villain, and, as in the Bourne franchise, we have a distinctive and recurring theme of bureaucratic and governmental deviousness; since the events of 9/11, many have produced conspiracy theories that claim the Bush administration, in possible conjunction with the CIA and Mossad ,deliberately orchestrated those attacks in order to justify a war with Iraq, and to increase executive power. Here, Charly's boss Leland Perkins plans to unleash a chemical bomb that would kill 4000 or more people, and place the blame on a dead Arab, whose body would conveniently be found not too far from the disaster site. He is motivated to commit this heinous crime all so that he can convince the President (and probably Congress) to remove the funding restrictions that have been placed on his organization. A slick, solid action flick.
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