D: Renny Harlin
S: Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson
The bidding war over Shane Black's bizarrely-entitled screenplay made larger
waves than the release of the film itself, and is a prime example of how
the deal drives the system in contemporary Hollywood. It is all about buying
and selling the property, and The Long Kiss Goodnight was a package
with promising elements, bought at great cost and sold with little regard
for quality control. The result: mediocre response at the box-office where
the punters had no idea of what went on behind the scenes and sensed only
that no one cared about this movie when it was being made, only when it
was being sold.
Davis plays a mild-mannered amnesiac schoolteacher living in a picket-fence
paradise with a loving husband and cute daughter, who, after a traumatic
accident, begins to remember her previous life as a cold-blooded assassin
working for the U.S. Government. The private detective she's hired to investigate
her past (Jackson) is then drawn into the fray as she goes on the run from
old enemies, and he becomes her unlikely sidekick. Eventually all things
come together as her past invades her present and her enemies threaten her
family. She must decide just who and what she is and either let them die
or save the day spectacularly.
So the scenario is a bit cheesy, but Black has managed to make familiar
material seem punchy and original before (Lethal Weapon, The Last
Boy Scout). With a good director, on this occasion it might have worked
out again. But Renny Harlin to date has only made cheesy material even cheesier
(A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger,
Cutthroat Island), and he is unable to tune in the human dimensions
(or the mordant humour) of the story and come up with the real throat-grabber
which lurks in there somewhere.
The attention to physical detail and the extreme complexity of the logistics
are characteristic of a carefully made big budget action movie. Harlin handles
the action scenes well enough and the effects are generally good. But despite
Davis' best attempts to inject moments of metaphysical self-reflection into
her character and Jackson's frantic attempts to maintain his dignity, the
human angle is not strong enough, and you care less for the characters'
fates than for the eventual resolution of the narrative which will provide
the minimal level of visual pleasure.
There's material enough here regarding gender, race, family values, human
rights, and the nature of memory and identity to fill out some discussion
time on a slow night, but none of it is well brought out. Simply to have
these ideas present, or to have the characters mouth the dialogue as written
is not enough. The film needed to focus on the issues at stake and draw
the audience into the character's inner lives, not just attach thematics
to the explosives and see if anyone noticed.
It was a growing interest in Bruce Willis' increasingly personal dilemma
which gave Die Hard its emotional core. By the time we reached the
climax, the relationships had gone from the mechanics of plotting to real
human drama with the lives and identities of the central characters in the
balance. Similar possibilities existed in the script for The Long Kiss
Goodnight, but are not fully realised on screen. Harlin is far too concerned
with making sure everything looks and feels authentic on the surface and
that everyone has enough cuts and bruises to make it seem genuinely painful.
He misses what's underneath, and what is happening to the characters as
people, because ultimately, in his hands, they are not people at all.
It was precisely this directorial style which made Die Hard 2 into
a violent, empty, live-action cartoon and made Cliffhanger closer
to high camp than high adventure. Like so many Hollywood directors these
days (yes, I am aware that Harlin is, in fact, from Finland, and is one
of the country's few internationally famous directors: the other being Aki
Kaurismaki), Harlin lacks the vision to transcend mere craft and make a
film with more heart than guts. The result is that he pays homage to the
tradition of studio-era programmers by making films which are mediocre Hollywood
product, another digit on the production schedule released into theatres
and onto video and onto satellite and finally onto commercial television
with the regularity of a well-oiled distribution machine, as easily forgotten
as the next and as easily dismissed.
This is disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. The result is that The
Long Kiss Goodnight passes the time less painfully than most of its
reviews would have you believe, but leaves you with very little interest
in seeing it again.
Review by Harvey O'Brien copyright
1997.