Seven Classic Tracks from Grosse Pointe Blank
My favourite John Cusack film features a dynamite 1980s pop soundtrack
Cult black comedy Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) is my favourite film starring John Cusack. George Armitage’s offbeat, darkly satirical gem stars Cusack as the eponymous Martin Blank, a professional hitman who ten years previously stood up his high school sweetheart Debi (Minnie Driver) on prom night.
Ending up in the freelance assassination private sector, Martin has become anxious and depressed after years of professional killing. He is persuaded by his shrink (a hilarious Alan Arkin) to accept a high school reunion invitation. By coincidence, said reunion takes place the weekend he is due to assassinate a target in his hometown Grosse Pointe.
Martin makes a play for Debi, despite standing her up ten years earlier. Unfortunately, he has NSA agents on his tail, plus two rival hitmen; one bearing a grudge (Benny Urquidez), the other wanting him to join an absurd assassins union (Dan Aykroyd). The off-the-charts cringe factor of the reunion itself reveals some very sharp satirical irony in how all Martin’s contemporaries — high school graduates during the height of Reagan’s America — all went on to become killers of one kind or another. Suffice to say, the path of true love does not run smoothly.
