Oh the weather outside is frightful…and so is Samantha Caine. Or is she Charly Baltimore? Well, whatever her name is, she’s one bad ass chick in The Long Kiss Goodnight. This amnesiac former assassin has to piece her past together while holding on to her present. Luckily, she’s got Samuel L. Jackson on her side.
In the Long Kiss Goodnight, Samantha/Charly is an amnesiac assassin-turned suburban mom, and, along with low-grade private eye Mitch Hennesey (Samuel L. Jackson), she has to fight to keep her new life together when her old life comes a-knockin’ at her door.
The Long Kiss Goodnight takes its time to get to the action, but once it does it’s just a hoot, even a hoot and a half! Lots of kills, car chases, narrow escapes, and the best part of all is that this is happening just a few days before Christmas. Merry Christmas, kids! Your mom is a trained assassin and can snap a guy’s neck with one hand while baking a pie with the other. I would tell Santa to keep away from this household, or he might find a .45 caliber at the end of that chimney.
The Long Kiss Goodnight is equipped with all the traditional Christmas activities: caroling with a gun stuck to your head, going to church and having your kid kidnapped, going to visit your family and realizing that they are targets that you were once sent to kill…all the good stuff.
The bad guys in this movie make the classic bad guy mistake of trying to kill our super-competent hero in the slowest, most escapable way possible. Why don’t you just shoot them in the head and be done with it? No, that’s too easy (plus it’s a movie. Killing the main character at the beginning of the final act isn’t exactly good form.) The bad guys leaving a super assassin alone to die in any way is like signing their own death certificates. Hello! Super assassin here! Are you depressed because you have to spend Christmas planning terrorist attacks and secretly want to die?
Honestly, The Long Kiss Goodnight is one of my all-time favorite action flicks. Fearsome fights, solid stakes, and a killer cast, to boot! Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson are one of those movie pairings you might not have imagined, but once you see how good they are together, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without ’em! The Long Kiss Goodnight can take as long as it wants kissing me goodnight, anytime.
Time until the real action starts: ~ 24 minutes
Big bad baddies: Rogue CIA operatives
Best Line: Samuel L. Jackson busts in on some dude with a…pretty lady who performs special jobs for money. He says, “You’re assuming I won’t shoot your sorry ass, and everyone knows when you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you…and Umption.”
Best Kill: There are a lot of good kills in this movie, but the best one involves a triple takedown. Samantha/Charly is in an alley with a bad guy pointing a gun at her head. Samuel L. Jackson shows up and points a gun at the bad guy’s head. Samantha/Charly, not being a woman who needs rescuing, punches the bad guy in the throat and takes his gun. She pulls him into a head lock, spins, and shoots another bad guy over Samuel L. Jackson’s shoulder. She does another 180 and shoots a third bad guy jumping out of the shadows. Whatever happened to the guy she had in a head lock, one might ask. Well, he was her personal body shield and was shot by the other two bad guys. All the while, Samuel L. Jackson is standing there looking like he pooped his pants.
Best Explosion: The best explosion almost always happens at the end of the movie, and TLKGN makes no exception. A gas truck is wired with a huge bomb, and has crashed right on the bridge bordering Canada and the US at Niagara Falls. It blows up, knocking out most of the bridge in a screen-feilling ball of flames.
Best Narrow Escape: Samantha/Charly and Samuel L. Jackson are running from some bad guys in a train station. They are three stories up and Samuel L. Jackson is saying that they should just turn and start shooting when a grenade falls in front of them. He yells, “Fuck it!” and they run down the hallway. Samantha/Charly shoots out the glass at the end and they jump out the window. Below them is an iced over body of water. Samantha/Charly starts shooting the ice and just in time for them to fall through safely.
Action Rating: 3 ½ Santa L. Jacksons, out of 5
This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!
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I am SO HAPPY you did a write-up of this film. It is one of my FAV action flicks. Geena Davis is terrific as Samantha/Charly – and well, how can anyone not like Samuel L. Jackson? He is super cool, great lines, and well, just HIM!
Action, action, action – plus I love the line Nathan Waldman when Samuel L. Jackson’s character asks, how many guns do you carry – “Three. One shoulder, one hip and one down here, right next to Mr. Wally, where most patdowns never reveal it, as even the most hardened federal agent is often reluctant to feel up another man’s groin. Any other questions? ”
GREAT REVIEW Ms. Chick!
Sorry, I have to differ with you on the best line in the movie. It was… “Chef’s do that.”
Great review. I, too, loved this movie.