Spy

Before Jason Bourne was an assassin who lost his memory there was Charlie Baltimore and she has no sequels. The way I see it, Geena Davis was ahead of her time. Yes, we'd had "La Femme Nikita" and maybe a few others, but "The Long Kiss Goodnight" was the first female kickass assassin movie I'd ever seen.

This movie went for a tandem that hadn't quite been explored: White female with Black male. I think it worked fabulously. Samuel Jackson pretty much reprised his same role in "Die Hard with a Vengeance." In there he was the reluctant and very funny sidekick. In TLKG he was pretty much the same: a low-rent private eye who was thrust into the middle of a federal game of kill or be killed.

Geena Davis, as Charlene "Charlie" Baltimore was perfect if not for her known character types. She'd always played a fragile motherly type: "The Fly," "Beetlejuice," and "Thelma & Louise" are a few examples. So she fit nicely as a spy who'd lost her memory and wound up being a small town matriarch known for her cookies and clean life. Then to see her flip and become this foul mouth, unbreakable, vicious assassin was awesome.

My only question is where is "The Long Kiss Goodnight 2"? Worse spy/assassin movies have been given sequels so why not give Charlie Baltimore a franchise?

Not a box office success; no-one really knows why. It may have failed simply because of its title. It looks as though you need a two-word tough-guy title to attract a sufficient proportion of the idiot crowd - "Die Hard", "Lethal Weapon", "Hard Weapon", "Die Lethal", etc. - talking about "the long kiss goodnight" will get you nowhere. But for once Renny Harlin has made a GOOD action movie. A large part of the reason for this lies in the fact that the central character, Samantha, earns our affection and interest early on. As she becomes Charly again, we're torn: we certainly want Charly to thwart the bad guys, and all that; but we don't want her to lose touch with Samantha in order to do so - even though we like Charly, too. Geena Davis bestows all of her considerable charm on both halves of the central character. Samuel L. Jackson plays second fiddle for a change. It turns out he's good at it. That was a compliment.

Intelligent, far superior to anything in the "Die Hard" series - if I were more cynical I'd add, "it's not surprising that it didn't do well", but I don't really feel that way; it IS surprising that it didn't do well.

I was about to go to sleep while I flicked through the channels one last time and happened to catch the beginning of "The Long Kiss Goodnight"- perhaps I missed the first minute or two. But I remembered I had marked the movie to watch and thought what the heck- I'll watch. I can honestly say that I really enjoyed those two hours. The scene with the truck was definitely fun, and at the same time terrifying (as you know the purpose of the truck and who's in it, I won't spoil it for anyone). The humor was great too, and the acting of the four leads (Davis, Jackson, Zima and Bierko) was quite enjoyable- as is this entire film.

A lot of 'The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)' is decidedly silly, especially when it comes to its over-the-top, tonally jarring and generally just outright ridiculous action sequences. The heroes are essentially indestructible, despite the heavy beating they both endure by the film's end, to the point that it becomes quite ludicrous they'd survive the events they do (indeed, the original script was much darker and even included a major death, which was shot but recut because of audience testing). However, there's generally a knowing vibe the the flick, one that's marked by Shane Black's signature witty banter and some almost ostentatious performances, and this allows the picture to remain fun regardless of its occasional tonal issues, its cartoonish action scenes and all its unkept mayhem (seriously, the flick has quite the body-count). It has an almost satirical feel that's compounded by the several scenery-chewing monologues, tried-and-tested genre cues and people who refer to themselves as spies with a straight face. 6/10

Samantha Caine, schoolteacher, mother, suffering from amnesia, suddenly finds the impetus to track down her former life after an attempt is made on her life. It's going to be explosive......

Absolute preposterous nonsense laced with explosions, cringe worthy dialogue and Geena Davis as an all killing assassin bitch. Is it any good? Oh yes indeed! Directed by Mr Unsubtle-Renny Harlin {Davis' then husband} and written by one Shane Black {Lethal Weapon, Last Boy Scout & Kiss Kiss Bang Bang}, is it any wonder that the Long Kiss Goodnight is ear splittingly loud and funny as hell?

Davis plays Sammy "home-maker" Caine who teams up with a superbly seedy Samuel L. Jackson as ex-bent copper, ex-convict, Mitch Henessey. Their mission, which they choose to accept, involves rekindling Samantha's past life as an assassin called Charly Baltimore and unearthing shady government conspiracies. Shot against a bitter winter backdrop on the East Coast, with the Christmas setting oddly adding potency, our wonderful duo take us on one hell of a ride. Davis excels as a sexy action heroine while Jackson is content, and impactingly so, to let Davis basically kick buttocks as he plays perfect side-kick foil. Harlin, this after the critically savaged Cutthroat Island, knows how to construct action scenes, check out the train station scene and a tanker on the run heart pumper. But it's with Shane Black's screenplay that the film primarily entertains. Full of one line zingers and role reversal put downs, you should be laughing as your eyes and ears are assaulted in popcorn bonanza.

Mindless all action fun. 7.5/10