A Shane Black Christmas #1 - The Long Kiss Goodnight

You can't go wrong with a Shane Black script. It's gonna be a buddy movie. One buddy has to be a trained expert...the other has to be from a social minority. And it has to be set at Christmas. There are currently four movies (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), all penned by Black, that fit this description. So in the Christmas spirit (and since I can't face watching The Polar Express or The Grinch) I've decided to have a festive revisit of The Shank Black Experience starting with The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Here's what I noticed:-
1/ After her rather ineffectual star role in Cutthroat Island, Geena Davis steps up to the mark, in her dual roles, as an amnesiac suffering school teacher and as super-assassin Charlie Baltimore.
2/ Not surprisingly with Renny Harlin directing, Long Kiss is the biggest scale of the four movies (the Niagara Fall stuff is MASSIVE) and the most bullshit in tone. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a bit of bullshit action, especially from a director in his prime.
3/ It seems bizarre to me that I forgot just how incredible Sam Jackson is as Mitch Hennessey. Give the man some great dialogue, a tough attitude and a licence to swear and no one can top Jackson in a role like this. Perhaps it's because he was playing the sidekick...maybe because Davis gets top billing...but Sam runs away with this movie.
4/ Black's one-liners still induce stomach cramps from laughter. If you haven't seen it (or even in a while) those witicisms just kind of sneak up on you and sucker punch you.
5/ Patrick Malahide and Craig Bierko were never the best villains but there's a great supporting cast including Brian Cox and David Morse.
6/ Despite girlies kicking arse in everything from Total Recall to Mortal Kombat, this was the first movie to convince me that a woman could be a convincing, no-nonsense action hero. When Davis spits, "Suck my dick!" at the film's climax, you know it's a declaration that women are now toe to toe with male action stars. Since then women action stars are mainstream, from Tomorrow Never Dies Michelle Yeoh to TV's Buffy. All the girls be kung-fu fighting.

Great preposterous action, great actors with a great, script laced with profanity strewn humour, The Long Kiss Goodnight is a frequently watched action classic. And that's pretty good considering it ranks forth out of four of Black's movies.