Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) on Netflix
Martin Blank is a professional assassin. A job brings him to Grosse Pointe, where his ten-year high school reunion is taking place. His prom date, Debi Newberry, is a local radio host.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.3/10105,905 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes81%
Trailer
Plot summary
Martin Blank kills for a living, and the business has started to wear on him. He unloads his problems on Dr. Oatman, a therapist who is reluctant to take on a man in his line of work. A fellow assassin, Grocer, invites him to join a union of hit men, and Martin declines, preferring to work alone. When a contract in Miami goes wrong, the client insists he make up for it with a job in Detroit, and Marcella, who runs the office side of his business, suggests he attend his class reunion in Grosse Pointe while he is nearby. Martin walked out of that town on prom night and never came back, leaving behind Debi Newberry, now a radio host, whom he hopes to see again.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Tom Jankiewicz wrote the initial script in 1991 after receiving an invitation to his 10-year high school reunion, and picked the title while substitute teaching an English class at Upland High School, writing it on the classroom's whiteboard to see how it would look on a cinema marquee.
- An urban legend sprouted from the movie that its script was based on a true story about a student who became a professional hitman; in fact the character Marcella was named for Jankiewicz's manager at Big Lots.
SPOILER
Two or three different endings were shot, with the two of them getting together and talking about things, and everything didn't work; Joe Roth said at one of the screenings that when the father says "you've got my blessing" in the bathtub at the end, after the shoot-out, they should just cut to the two of them leaving.- Jankiewicz simultaneously worked as a substitute teacher and a cashier at a Big Lots in Upland, California, to make ends meet before his script was picked up for production.
- Director George Armitage later said that he "did as much as anyone did in terms of writing" the film, but that he did not seek a credit for it.
- According to Joan Cusack, the 2008 film War, Inc. is an informal sequel: both films are similar in style and theme, and both star John as an assassin and his sister Joan as his assistant, with Dan Aykroyd in a supporting role.
- The score was composed by Joe Strummer, formerly of the Clash, and the soundtrack includes two songs by the Clash, "Rudie Can't Fail" and their cover version of Willi Williams' "Armagideon Time".
