Grosse Pointe Blank A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - R It's 1:47 Long A Review by Stu Gotz

Now, all you kids be quiet for a minute, I want to talk to the "old-graduated-in-the-eighties" farts out there. How many of you dreaded, or are dreading, the thought of your 10 year high school reunion? Why is that? Because you're now a fat slob? You didn't become successful? You hated all those people back then and you figure that much wouldn't have changed in 10 years? What if you were still fit, were so successful at what you do that the competition kept giving you offers, and you actually didn't hate (or were hated) by all your school chums? Would you go then? Such are the complications John Cusack's character faces in the new movie "Grosse Pointe Blank." "Complications?" you ask? Oh, did I forget to mention that John stood up his date on prom night, ran away from home, joined the army, and is now a free lance killer? (Gee. . ., and I thought it was gonna be hard for me to admit I work for a lame E-Zine at my reunion). Oops. So, how do you tell your friends, while standing around the punch bowl, that you get paid to kill third world dictators for a living? If you're John you just try and avoid the reunion all together.

But, as fate, or skilled Hollywood writing, would have it, your next assignment puts you in town for the reunion. Now what do you do? Oh well, I guess there are no excuses. You just drop into town to find out that your house has been turned into a convenience store, your Lithium laced mother is in the nut house, the girl who you stood up and hoped you had forgotten but are still harboring feelings for is a local DJ, four assassins are after your ass, and the father of the girl you still love is supposed to be your next target. What do you do? If it were me I'd pull up a chair next to mom, turn on Tom & Jerry, and wash a couple of happy pills down with a bottle of Jack. But that would make for a short and un-interesting movie now wouldn't it. Instead, our hero (John) inadvertently destroys the convenience store in a great gun and explosion scene, kills one assassin with a pen and has his old school chum help him ditch the body in the school's furnace, whack yet another assassin using a TV set, find a new respect for life, changes his killer ways, saves his girl's dad, and rides off into the sunset with his girlie in the end. Oh how sweet, how romantic, how funny!

A lot of the previews for this movie really push the "saving my girl friend's father from killers" subject, but actually that plays very little into the movie and then not until the end. Most of the movie centers around the funny and awkward things that can be part of the whole reunion thing. Having been to my reunion and actually missing the chance to reacquaint myself with a long lost love I could identify with the characters and understand the humor in their plight. This movie is not a side splitting funny one nor is it a beautiful romantic one. None the less it makes its point well and was enjoyable to me, so I give "Grosse Pointe Blank" 3 out of 5 stars, and I'm a feeling like an old Stu Gotz. 'nuff said.