Review: The Long Kiss Goodnight
The Long Kiss Goodnight is the story of a high school teacher with retrograde amnesia who, upon meeting a scamming private detective, starts to discover her hidden past and find that there are very bad men out to get her. That is because she is an ex-government assassin and not a chef like she thought she was.
I remembered The Long Kiss Goodnight as another one of those great action movies that are not as appreciated as it should be. So before I even started rewatching it, I looked it up. And I found this guy, Shane Black. He’s the screenwriter. He wrote this movie. And he wrote The Last Boyscout. And he wrote the Lethal Weapon series. And the Last Action Hero. All awesome action movies. Because they are written as action movies and not just action scenes with a semblance of plot or movies with some action in them. And the most important thing, they had awesome dialogue.
Here are some examples:
Mitch Henessey: [singing] Putting the keys in my left pocket. Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm. Gun in the right-hand side.
Samantha Caine: It makes a bulge, people can see.
Mitch Henessey: Ya want me to stick it in my pants and shoot my damn dick off?
Samantha Caine: Now you’re a sharpshooter?
Mitch Henessey: What I’m saying is, back when we first met, you were all like “Oh phooey, I burned the darn muffins.” Now, you go into a bar, ten minutes later, sailors come runnin’ out. What up with that?
Nathan: Alice, please. Your dog, Alice. It and my appetite are mutually exclusive.
Alice: Well, what’s wrong with the dog?
Nathan: Simple. He’s been licking his asshole for the last three straight hours. I submit to you that there is nothing there worth more than an hour’s attention. I should think that whatever he is attempting to dislodge is either gone for good, or there to stay. Wouldn’t you agree?
And that’s only three of them. Some of the rest are here. The point is, this movie is spectacularly written. Because Shane Black knows how to write good action movies. And of course, Samuel Jackson is awesome and Geena Davis also deserve more credit than she usually gets.
Bottom line, it’s an action movie. A pretty standard one and a bit of an oldie. But if you’re an action buff, this should be in your collection, no questions asked. Because Samuel Jackson said it himself, Samuel L. “Motherfuckin'” Jackson, that The Long Kiss Goodnight was his favorite out of all the movies he made. And consider this: Shane Black is writing and directing Iron Man 3. To me, that means Iron Man 3 might become the best Marvel movie yet.
Posted in Reviews by Eran with comments disabled.