I first saw Grosse Pointe Blank in a small theatre in a small town in Maine. The top floor was the cinema; the bowling alley was on the ground floor.
The film is about a hit man who goes back to his hometown for his tenth high school reunion and tries to re-ignite a relationship with an old flame.
Despite its having an all-star cast and critical and popular acclaim, I didn't like it. It has an interesting premise . . . once you get past the idea that the writers seem to have been thinking "How can we make a high school comedy with actors who are clearly no longer in high school? I mean, they got away with it in The Breakfast Club, but that technique strains credulity a bit too much." But it didn't go anywhere interesting with the premise.
Many people have recommended that I re-watch it. "You must have been in a bad mood when you saw it." "The noise of bowling downstairs must have distracted you." "I can't believe you don't love this film!"
And I think I gave in at one point and watched it again, but I didn't like it any better. But then someone played the ace up their sleeve: "Didn't you like the Shakespeare in the film?"
Well, that did it, and I re-watched it. Note: You can probably get me to watch just about any stick if you proffer Shakespeare as a carrot.
But I still didn't like it much, and now I'm a bit resentful that there wasn't more Shakespeare. I was thinking I might have missed an entire Shakespearean subplot.
No such luck. There's not even enough to make extracting a video clip worthwhile. But here are some stills with all the Shakespeare in Grosse Pointe Blank. First, a modern paraphrase of a couple lines from a song in The Merchant of Venice delivered by the old flame during one of her radio broadcasts:
Links: The Film at IMDB.
That, naturally, is a play on the song Portia has the singers sing before Bassanio makes his choice: "Tell me, where is fancy bred, / Or in the heart or in the head?" (III.ii.63–64). And the message is, I suppose, what Bassanio says: "So may the outward shows be least themselves" (III.ii.73). Perhaps her old flame, who stood her up on prom night, has some interior goodness. And, from the audience perspective, perhaps this hit man has a heart of gold.
The only other Shakespeare in the film is a flippant quote from the woman's father:
For those of you keeping score, that's from Hamlet (II.ii.303–04, slightly misquoted). Perhaps it, too, points toward the awesome nature of the human spirit, even if it be hidden in a quintessence of dust.
To sum it all up, I haven't changed my mind. But I had not noticed the Shakespeare before, so I'm glad of that.
And the film has a terrific soundtrack—we can't gainsay that.
Links: The Film at IMDB.
Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).
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