00:00 "I just honestly don't know what I have in common with those people anymore. And what
00:04 am I going to say? I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How have you been?"
00:09 "Gross Point Blank" is a film from 1997. It's an action-dark comedy about an assassin
00:15 and the emotional turmoil that he faces from having to go to his high school reunion. So
00:21 this one was chosen by one of our supporters over on Patreon called Jason, and he thinks
00:26 that this film is underrated and underseen.
00:29 So at the time of recording over on IMDb, it gets 7.3 out of 10. The audience on Rotten
00:35 Tomatoes give it 87%, so a little bit higher, and the critics give it 82%, which is sort
00:40 of in the middle. It didn't do great at the box office, but it has become a little bit
00:44 of a cult hit, so we'll see if we think it is underrated or underseen. Now, I had seen
00:49 this one before, but you hadn't, so tell us a little bit about what your thoughts were.
00:53 So like you said, I hadn't seen it, I hadn't even heard of it, but I was actually really
00:57 impressed by the whole film as an entirety. So I really like the concept, and I think
01:02 it lends itself so well to the genre, and it gets that balance of darkness and comedy
01:07 just right. And the idea of an assassin, this cold-blooded killer, being fazed by the fact
01:12 that he has to go to his high school reunion just opens the doors for comic creativity.
01:16 I think the character introductions are really strong as well, and just bouncing off from
01:20 that, there's a lot of side characters in this that feel really well-developed and bring
01:24 quite a lot to the story. And I think the script is really sophisticated at times as
01:29 well. The way the characters interact with each other, the conversations that they have,
01:33 there's a lot going on in there.
01:34 Do you know what? Watching it this time, I actually enjoyed it a lot more. I remember
01:37 watching it the first time thinking, "Yeah, it's good, it's decent." But this time, I
01:40 think I appreciated that script a little bit more that you're talking about there. It's
01:44 really sharp, it's really witty, it's dark, but it's also funny at the same time. Like
01:49 you said, John Cusack's character, Martin Blank's killing people for a living, but he's
01:52 scared of his high school reunion. So there's loads of different layers of comedy in there
01:55 which I really liked. I think John Cusack really is an interesting screen presence.
01:59 I always see him as a bit of a sexy everyman, but he's also a bit of a dark side. He's got
02:03 that touch of the Nicolas Cage about him, but at the same time, he's also got that touch
02:06 of the Tom Cruise about him. Quite your standard leading man, but with an edge.
02:10 What have you been doing with your life?
02:11 Uh... professional killer.
02:15 I would say there were probably two main things that I didn't like about the film. The first
02:18 was that in the odd occasion, there was a bit of lazy storytelling where we were told
02:22 things as opposed to being shown them, and I didn't really think this was necessary.
02:26 The other thing is, I would have really liked to have seen more assassinations or more assassination
02:30 attempts, because the ones that we do see feel really creative, they feel really engaging.
02:35 So looking at those scores then, 8 out of 10 average. Is it underrated? And also, is
02:43 it underseen based on what you know?
02:45 For me, that score isn't underrated, but from what we've seen after putting the episode
02:49 out there, a lot of people really love this film, which has been really interesting to
02:53 discover. So I can see why people would think it's underrated, but I do certainly think
02:58 that it's underseen, and I just don't think that people, especially modern audiences,
03:02 are going back and watching this.
Comments