The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
Chefs do that.
THE SUMMARY: A woman recovers her memory after an amnesia episode and discovers she’s a highly skilled government-hired assassin, so she kills some people in absurd action scenes and then goes home to a farm, but not before a CIA guy eerily predicts 9/11 five years before it happened.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER STEPHEN: This is actually a Christmas tradition in our house where many others have chosen Die Hard as a current tradition. The movie is action-packed and revolves around December. Plus Geena takes MANY beatings and still fights to survive while protecting her daughter.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S SHOW AI ART FOR THE WEEK:
Just like Samuel L, I am in fact Matthew L.
Hitting a cyclist instead of a deer would have been an improvement.
I actually don’t get the ‘ham on rye’ line.
THE BEST:
Terrible but undeniably entertaining action: This movie is really just a montage of so-bad-it’s-good action. Action that’s gratuitous, and doesn’t really make sense, but is wildly entertaining.
Early in the movie my eyebrows raised at the deer-crash scene, the first encounter with this absurdity. I thought ‘they’re driving like 45 on a snowy rural road - that’s just not fast enough to put a deer on the hood and send this woman flying through the windshield.’ And then not only is Samantha/Charly not hurt, but she gets up with enough strength to mercy-kill the deer with a neck break.
I thought this movie was trying to be serious, or maybe in ways it is, but once I gathered that the absurdity was the point, it was much more fun to watch. A hand grenade with the explosive force of a bomb. Shooting the ice with an Uzi to cushion the fall (the actors were actually submerged in freezing water for that one, and Samuel L. Jackson called it the craziest stunt of his career). Mitch getting launched hundreds of feet through the air and still not dying.
Yes, it makes no sense that all the enemies have the firearms skill and accuracy of stormtroopers, while Charly can’t miss. Yes, it makes no sense that Caitlin, her daughter, is completely unscathed after riding in the undercarriage of a crashed semi. Yes, it makes no sense that Charly can just untie herself from the torture machine, and that they wouldn’t have put some other guy in the torture machine with a gun on him in the first place. Ironically, to enjoy the best of this movie, you have to do exactly what Samantha/Charly did - turn your brain off.
Whatever Samuel L’s wardrobe is: Every outfit was absolutely preposterous, but it makes each scene change fun. There’s a good sampling of the various outfits here. My personal favorite is the track-jacket-inside-a-leather-jacket, knit bucket hat combo.
The 9/11 prediction is flat-out spooky: I’m awarding a full extra Wicky for just how crazy the scene that predicts 9/11 is. It makes me believe not only was 9/11 an inside job, but Geena Davis planned it herself.
Later in the movie, Charly and Mitch learn about ‘Operation Honeymoon, which was going to be a false flag chemical bomb attack in Niagara Falls. Since Charly disrupted it, the CIA is now planning a new false flag attack to get Congress to give them more money. Mitch asks the CIA Director ‘you’re telling me that you’re going to fake some terrorist thing just to scare some money out of Congress?’ The CIA Director responds, ‘well unfortunately, Mr. Henessey, I have no idea how to fake killing 4,000 people. So we’re just going to have to do it for real. We’ll blame it on the Muslims, naturally.’
Granted, in context, the CIA Director was expanding on the premise of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, so it wasn’t a completely made-up concept, but given the event happened in a way very similar to what this movie is portraying fictionally, it’s a bizarrely accurate coincidence. If it is in fact a coincidence at all.
Geena Davis did 9/11.
Once you realize the absurdity is the point, it’s fun to watch.
Don’t think - just lol.
Geena Davis did 9/11.
THE WORST:
I’m just not into the ‘badass chick’ bit: Maybe it was less tired in this movie’s time, and I’m just jaded by so many Hollywood productions devoted to indoctrinating me into believing women are just as physically capable as men, or in this movie’s case, superior. In fairness, I don't think The Long Kiss Goodnight was trying to push a political or social agenda. I think it was trying to be fun. So I won’t punish the movie significantly for it, but I just don’t enjoy watching chicks beat up or outshoot dudes.
Ok cool… so what though?: For as much as I can say about the enjoyable action, what is the purpose of it, actually? What point does this movie make? What moral does it present? What philopshical concept does it explore? None. And that’s a problem. It’s a movie about nothing dressed up with fireworks. Sure, you might ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ for a minute, but nobody actually thinks about the fireworks later.
What exactly is the genre here?: The Long Kiss Goodnight is a good example of trying to do all the things, but not doing any one of them exceptionally well. Is it a comedy? If so, the jokes and slapstick aren’t that funny. Is it a drama? If so, why is dressed up in so much absurdity? Is it a romance? If so, why does Hal completely disappear from the plot and then return for five seconds at the end? Rarely do movies check all boxes with excellence, and The Long Kiss Goodnight is not the rarity. Like most movies that try to achieve everything, it actually achieves none. It’s is a mediocre movie that can’t decide what it wants to be.
I get it - if only all the men were as tough and skilled as this woman.
IS IT A CHRISTMAS MOVIE?: Much like Die Hard, there’s some debate as to whether the general Christmas setting qualifies for the title ‘Christmas movie.’ As discussed in that review, the definition of or standard for ‘Christmas movie’ is that Christmas must meaningfully impact the plot. A mere momentary sight of Santa Claus or a tree with gifts under it is not sufficient. Christmas must influence the story in a way that would be different if it wasn’t Christmas time at all.
In this case, it does - Charly-then-Samantha is spotted by her enemies at a Christmas parade, and the injury that jars her memory is suffered because she’s driving the drunken Santa, Earl, home. If it weren’t for Christmas, Charly isn’t spotted by her enemies, and her memory of her assassin skills doesn’t return. So the verdict? Yes. The Long Kiss Goodnight is a Christmas movie.
THE RATING: 3/5 Wickies. Grab a hot cocoa and a candy cane, enjoy some Christmas action, and turn off your brain except to ponder who actually did 9/11, and if they were inspired by this movie.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇ Note: if you get a notification saying you have already voted and you haven’t, this is because of an issue with iOS (Apple mobile devices). Try voting on a desktop or laptop computer.
NEXT WEEK: Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993)
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