I am the target audience for GPB -- a child of the 80s, sarcastic, dark, immersed in pop culture, charmed pantsless by John Cusack (I wish). It's an uneven but inventive and clever movie, combining (not always smoothly) a Tarantino-esque shoot-em-up action story, a love story, and a Gen X nostalgia/searching-for-inner-self story. Plus a hip 80s New Wave soundtrack.
John Cusack (who also co-scripted) plays Martin Blank, a hitman who's beginning to question his work. On the advice of his loopy secretary (a terrific and energetic Joan Cusack) and his reluctant therapist (a dryly funny Alan Arkin), he combines a job with a visit to his high-school reunion and the girl (Minnie Driver) he walked out on ten years before. Meanwhile, he's pursued by several people (one of whom is the inexplicable and completely insane Dan Aykroyd) wanting to kill him for various reasons.
There are some great scenes where the movie really springs to life -- the reunion itself is the funniest, and Jeremy Piven has some good lines as one of Cusack's high-school buddies -- and some fresh concepts -- Aykroyd pesters Cusack to join the union he wants to form for hitmen. But the love story really drags down the rest of the picture, mainly because of Minnie Driver's astounding lack of personality. It doesn't help that her part is the most poorly written -- she has to say some lines that no person EVER would say, not to mention a small-town DJ who doesn't seem all that bright. But she brings absolutely no life, creativity, or interest to the role, and all her scenes with Cusack drag on listlessly.
Although I have to add that I used to date a guy who looked and acted a lot like John Cusack, who also vanished on me (sort of) nearly ten years ago (okay, 7), so it was a weird experience, to say the least, to watch John Cusack coming back and apologizing for leaving this girl -- I was having this whole meta-something (there's a word for it that Danny Drennan uses a lot, but I can't think of it right now) experience.
And I have to add that a couple things about the picture bothered me. First of all, the continuity people were on lunch throughout the entire filming (Cusack enters Driver's house -- it's dark out. He leaves and comes back later to pick her up -- it's broad daylight. They drive to the reunion, a few minutes away -- it's pitch black again). Also, Cusack's character seemed awfully cavalier about telling people he hadn't seen in 10 years that he's a professional killer. And he tells Driver that he got into the field because he joined the Army and on some test he answered some "morality" questions in such a way as to make the Army think he was suitable for contract killing, and I have to say that I would have to think long and hard about having a relationship with a man, regardless of what he did, if he told me that the ARMY -- the Army which turned a blind eye for as long as possible to sexual harassment, rape, gay bashing, racism, and even murder -- thought he was amoral.
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