Watching Grosse Point Blank for the First Time Ever!! // Reaction & Commentary // DOUBLE CUSACKS!! 

6:17 I like Alan Alda, too. But that's Alan Arkin.

John Cusack was 31, Jeremy Piven was 32, Minnie Driver was 27. I'd say them playing 28 is fine.

I love the way Martin just straight-up tells people "I'm a hired killer" when they ask what he's doing now. None of them believe him, but they don't quite know what to say either.

Yaaaaaay . Been wanting to see a reaction to this FOREVER.. Such an underrated gem.. and Aykroyd is fantastic in this flick.. And such an amazing soundtrack...

I like how he's honest and tells everyone he's a hit man. The fight scene in the high school hallway looks so realistic because IRL Cusack has been a black belt for most of his life.

It’s not a Tarantino thing. It’s a commentary on gen x suburban existentialism of the late 90’s.

I grew up near Grosse Pointe Michigan in the 80’s so you can imagine how much I love this movie

I think seeing the Pulp Fiction poster has prompted some conclusions that may not be warranted. We were never promised a blood bath. I completely disagree that the locker killing should have been first. This movie needs to ramp up to it's ending. We don't really see Martin doing his job till that point. Before that we can still see him as a fairly regular guy. Then he sticks a pen into the guy's neck and shoves him in a furnace. We have to see what Debi sees in that moment then go back to the house and be there for the discussion. I don't think it's ripped off from Tarantino. It's got it's own thing going on.

“A good friend will help you move. A great friend will help you move bodies.” I don’t know where I first saw that, but it definitely applies here.

"You can never go home again Oatman... but you can shop there."

I adored this freaking movie, and I love the Cusacks, period.

"The Ghoul" is six time world champion kickboxer Benny "The Jet" Urquidez who trained John Cusak for "Say Anything" (In which he didn't actually fight anyone, but it was just a story point that he was into what then was an obscure sport in the US) Cusak fell in love with it and continued training. This is the first time he ever used those chops for an action role. Benny trained a lot of Hollywood stars and choreographed a lot of fight scenes in classic 80's and 90's movies, most notably Patrick Swayze in "Road House". He starred as a villain opposite Jackie Chan twice in "Wheels on Meals" (1984) and "Dragons Forever" (1988) in two of the most iconic one-on-one fight scenes in martial arts movies.

If you haven't seen High Fidelity, then that should for sure be your next reaction. 👍🤘

"I really do love Alan Alda." What do you think about Alan Arkin?

"My apartment burned down on Devil's night" Referred to a time every Halloween, when people were setting buildings on fire in Detroit.

This is one of my favorite movies. I had a friend in collage whose proudest moment was getting to say "I don't want to have a semantic argument about it. I just want the protein" organically in a conversation.

One of the best films ever & such an awesome soundtrack! Have a great weekend Shanelle! (btw, it's Alan Arkin, not Alda)

This was a TRIPLE Cusack movie! Ann Cusack was Amy, who was drinking with Minnie Driver at the reunion.

Almost all the John Cusack movies have a great soundtrack! High Fidelity is also great.

The conversation Martin Blank has with the baby -- and if you don't think that was a deep conversation, you're dead inside -- is one of my favorite scenes from any movie ever.

I love this film. There are also 3 quintessential Cusack films from the 80s that you need on your list. Say Anything, Better Off Dead, and One Crazy Summer.

The title is a play on the location of his high school (Grosse Pointe), his name (Martin Blank) and Point Blank, a legendary hard-boiled crime movie from 1967. The late 90s were drowning in Tarantino knockoffs, but it's never occurred to me to think of this as one. It mixes some snarky dialogue with an unconventional violence-based storyline, but that's about it - Tarantino imitators generally aped his extreme, stylised violence, extreme, too-cool-for-school cynicism and (most importantly) often used a non-linear story to show how clever they were, none of which are really present here. Grosse Pointe Blank wears a huge heart right out there on its sleeve - it's more like a witty romcom with guns, and never feels like it's trying to insist it's cleverer than its audience (which a lot of sub-Tarantino stuff does). Hard disagree on the QT comparison, I think.

This movie couldn't be less like a Tarantino flick.

Underrated gem of a movie.

OK. I see the reference to "My apartment burned out on devils' night" went completely unnoticed. I lived in Detroit in 1980s. Devil's Night was when the whole Hell descended on the City. Cars, houses, and public monuments would be set on fire. I mean dozens and dozens of them. That's why it is so funny for anybody who lived in Detroit at that time...

Better Off Dead ..starring John Cusack ...freaking AWESOME. you'll love it i promise

This is a true John Cusack passion piece. It's his movie, through and through. It's the movie he made when he was on top of the A list and could have made any film in the world. You'll notice he even wrote it. And I think it's the only film he ever did. In your spare time you would enjoy Better Off Dead - another Cusack comedy masterpiece but I don't know if it's 'reaction-worthy'.

LOL Triple Cusacks: The lady at 13:33 is their sister. First time I saw this, I was confused, thinking that Marcella had decided to drop in on him for a prank, or info-drop, or something, because she looked so similar.

The only Bond reference I remember in this movie is the attempted assassination by dripping poison down a thread. It is a reference to *You Only Live Twice* .

This movie, like a lot of Cusack movies, hit a sweet spot for me because of the time period, music, etc. It came out when I was late in college, so there's a good bit of crossover both ways you look at it. Firmly entrenched in the 90's stuff but also nostalgic over all the 80's stuff.

I love this film it’s so underrated. It’s a thinking persons action comedy.

Yeah, Joan Cusack has not had the success she deserves. She's incredible.

Nothing like Pulp Fiction. The tone, style, cinematography, music, dialogue, direction, acting, and everything else are completely different. The only similarity is that both films feature hitmen, and Tarantino did not invent gangsters in suits. There are no gun battles in PF, just brief explosions of violence; in GPB there are several prolonged gunfight action set pieces. This notion that everything in the 1990s was a swipe from Pulp Fiction - or that PF was the pinnacle of 90s filmmaking because of its gimmicky structure - is myopic at best. Gross Pointe Blank has more in common with Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, which came out the same year. You're right about one thing, though - your obsession with and constant overpraise of Pulp Fiction has ruined you and stripped these reviews of any value.

Love the cast and soundtrack. Especially Joan! She's so good in everything, even if they don't give her a ton of time to shine. For another great high school reunion movie - Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion. Lotta fun. For my favorite 90's high school movie - Can't Hardly Wait. Amazing soundtrack and a packed cast.

🤠 The drunk girl at the table (13:32) is also John Cusack's sister.

One of My All Time Favorite Films. Cast is Incredible with a Cool Story, Romance and Great Soundtrack.

There are actually 5 Cusack sibling whom are all actors: John, Joan, Ann, Bill, and Susie Cusack, all of whom are in this movie except for Susie.

7:50. My grandma's house got turned into a nightclub club and they didn't even have the common decency to remodel the outside so it still looks like I'm driving up to my grandma's house I relate a lot with this moment in the movie

"Tarantino knock-off?" There was a lot of crime movies around this time, and it started before Quentin. Scorsese scored two big hits in a row with Goodfellas and Casino a couple years earlier. And then there were a lot of 90's low--budget indie auteurs and crime movies are just cheap to make. Around the same there was: "Wild at Heart" (David Lynch 1990) "El Mariachi" (Robert Rodriguez 1992) "Fargo" (Coen Bros 1994) "Doom Generation" (Gregg Arakki 1995) "Ghost Dog" (Jim Jarmusch 1999) "Go" (Doug Liman 1999) HK action movies and crime dramas like John Woo's "A Better Tomorrow" (1986 ) "The Killer" (1989) "Once A Thief" (1991) "Hardboiled"(1992) and Ringo Lam's "Full Contact" (1992) were huge around this time. The sequel to "A Better Tomorrow" is featured in "True Romance" (1993, written by Tarantino, dir by Tony Scott) and "Reservoir Dogs" lifted its plot from Ringo Lam's "City on Fire" (1987) Hipster cineastes knew all about HK action movies before "The Matrix" but soon after people like Jet Li, and Chow Yun Fat were making Hollywood crime dramas like "Romeo Must Die"(2000) and "The Corrupter" (1999). Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" is a remake of Andrew Lau's "Infernal Affairs" (2002) Speaking of The Matrix, before they made it, The Wachowskis wrote "Assassins" and made "Bound" French film-maker Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) was also making slick crime/espionage thrillers like "La Femme Nikita" (1990) and "Leon: The Professional" (1994) The original assassin-with-a-conscience movie is "Le Samourai" (1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville

A friend will help you move, a good friend will help you move a body.

Joan Cusack was robbed of an Oscar for In and Out. Wedding Singer had “99 red balloons”

When I worked in record stores we sold SO many copies of this soundtrack. Great film as well, and I much prefer GPB to Pulp Fiction.

One of the best movies of the nineties! Love John Cusack!

I'm sooo glad you watched this! One of my all time favs!

I fell in love with John Cusack back in 1985 as Harry in The Journey of Natty Gann. My brother and I would also obsessively watch Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer growing up, so I got a regular fix of him. 🥰🥰🥰

Oh My God! I've been waiting for somebody to react to this movie! One of my all time favorites, and a great soundtrack to boot.

I like to think of this as the end game of all of John Cusacks teen films, "The Sure Thing", "Better Off Dead", "One Crazy Summer" and "Hot Pursuit".

99 Luft Balloons was used in "The Watchmen", that is the one that always draws me back when I hear it.

10:10 Awww, you talked over her "You are broken" monologue

This and High Fidelity are 2 of my favorite John Cusack films and 2 of my favorite soundtracks! You might not know that John Cusack is also in Sixteen Candles, one of Anthony Michael Hall's friends. Jeremy Piven, the best friend who helps him, is one of his best friends in real life, when they were both kid actors from Chicago!

It's so weird seeing movies and shows that depict 10 year high school reunions at different times in your life. When you're a kid, 10 years seems like such a long time. And the movies and shows make it seem like a long time. But as an adult, now in my late 30s, 10 years feels like a blip on the radar. Hell, this year was 20 since I left high school, and it still feels like yesterday.

That baby “Under Pressure” scene was the best one of this movie. First time I saw it, had to rewind it a coupla times just for the joy of it. 😂

"We really do like Alan Alda" 🤣🤣. Alan Alda was brilliant in this movie.

I love how he goes from dark, professional killer mode back to a normal, playful person with Debbie.

The scary ghoul he kills in the hallway is actually John Cusack's kick boxing coach/friend.

The sliding poison down a wire trick was used in the James Bond film 'You Only Live Twice' (1967). Love this film; I was a teen in the late 90s and this is very much a nostalgic blast for me - I was 15 or 16 when this film came out and a ten year reunion seemed like an unimaginably distant future thing. Stupid time moving forward...

Fun Fact: There were two other Cusack siblings... one brother is a bartender and a sister is one of the school friends

This movie came out while I was in High School still and made me want to go to my reunion ten years in the future.

I always like to pretend that Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything changed his name to Martin Blank, became a hitman using his kickboxing skills, and ten years later came back to Diane Court, who now looks like Minnie Driver and has become a DJ to get away from all the stress.

I love Minnie Driver in this. In everything really. She's one of those actors that is reliably solid in everything even if she never became a massive star. There's a movie called Sleepers where she does some good work and a TV series called The Riches in which she is fantastic alongside Eddie Izzard. If you can find it it's worth a look. They play travellers involved in an accident with a very rich family and decide to take their identities and move into their home. It's a really good show. At least as far as I remember as I haven't seen it since it first aired. I just remember being very impressed.

Just FYI, Phrase check: it's "to the n-th degree", coming from math notation. sounds real close to tenth, so an easy mishearing.

I think it would be funny to see Joan Cusack and Drew Barrymore having a spirited conversation.

The bad guy that John Cusack kills with a pen is my son's great uncle! World famous martial artist Benny "the Jet" Urquidez.

One of the most under rated films to come out of the 90's such a perfect mix of action, comedy and drama with a rather cute love story. While I'm not comparing the two, I always found this to be one of those gems, in the same way the Princess Bride is. Just brilliant cast, great chemistry, wonderful screenplay and that soundtrack!!! One of those movies where everything clicks and the entire cast delivers. I'd never consider comparing this to Pulp Fiction though, I think the most apt description would be James Bond's midlife crisis.

Only you compare it to Tarantino films. I actually thought you might say that the girl in the wedding dress at the reunion was foreshadowing of the Bride in Kill Bill. 🙄

One of my all time favorites just watched the other day. "I know everyone is coming back to take stock of there lives. I say leave your livestock alone."

I came out of that same era and this movie hits in some very specific ways. Love it! The music, the ex that was such raw chemistry, the ride or die friendships, and the extreme cognitive dissonance of a 10 year reunion.

I’m so excited you’re watching this! I feel like people don’t talk about this film enough. It’s so good!

Seeing Debbie's dad and the lady in the neck brace (Jenna elfman) makes me want to go rewatch Dharma and Greg

A - this isn’t a pulp fiction ripoff, B - it isn’t “ultra violent”

This, as best I can remember, was one of the earliest “dark comedies” that wasn’t filmed as a dark movie it was filmed as if it were just another comedy and he happens to kill people. If that makes sense. It does in my head. It has more of a cult following, small though it may be. I adored Mini Driver, most beautiful natural curls I’ve ever seen. I have curls but her is just 🥰 And John Cusack, good lord. It was the first time I saw him as really really good looking man. He looked so good in those suits. 😍

I've always loved the line "you can never go home again , but I guess you can shop there" just gold

You should watch "My Blue Heaven." As of Italian roots, you would appreciate it.

Personally, I would credit the likes of the Coen Brothers and Michael Lehmann for setting the tone on dark comedy for the next decade with Raising Arizona and Heathers. Certainly Pulp Fiction upped the stakes... but Grosse Point Blank kind of hit that John Hughes itch we forgot were missing.

I'm so glad you watched this one. It's been a favorite of mine since it came out! I share your love of both John and Joan Cusack. I'm jealous of your Joan Cusack t-shirt! She definitely needs to be cast in everything. She was the best thing about 'Shameless'!

For a long time, this was in my top 5 all-time movies. It's been pushed just off that list, but still one of my very favorites. So glad you picked it to react to!

I loved this movie. The dialogue of Pulp Fiction was pretty much all Tarantino. Whereas this movie was more the result of the comedic genius of the actors. They were given the story and pretty much ad libbed their way through it. I especially liked the performances of Joan Cusack and Alan Arkin.

Also, there was a 3rd Cusack in the movie (their sister Ann) - playing the mother with the baby at the reunion

Martin´s mum is played by Barbara Harris, who played Jodie Foster´s mum in the original Freaky Friday. She was also in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, as one of Michael Caine´s victims.

I loved this movie. I graduated in 1987 from high school like the characters here, so all the music is completely wonderful!!!

EuroTrip and Not Another Teen Movie had the song 99 Luft Balloons. TV Series "Scrubs" also had it.

High fidelity is a most for you

The soundtrack is FIRE. And can we talk about Minnie Driver's little line of poetry? "Where are all the good men dead? In the heart? Or in the head?" So very philosophical!

Yay! This is one of my favorite movies, same as you I love this cast. I think this is one of John Cusack's best roles. Partly because my 10 yr hs reunion was that year and I also went straight to the military out of high school. Other than being a hit man, I can relate to Martin.

Tarantino was responsible for a rise in Tarantino-esque violent movies (e.g. Natural Born Killers, U-Turn, Sin City, and so on), but this wasn't one of them, this is typical black comedy with light violence, could have been made in the 80s as well

I’m so glad you took my advice from the “10 Things I Hate About You” video and decided to watch Grosse Point Blank, it’s one of my favorite movies and definitely in my top 3 John Cusack movies, along with “Better Off Dead” and “The Raven”

Thank you so much for doing this one. No joke one of my favorite 10 films ever. I watch at least once a year

Okay, I'm subscribed now. This is one of my favorite movies of all time!! :D :D

Also John Cusack and Jeremy Piven are real life childhood friends.

Also I laughed so hard .. it’s Alan Arkin LOL but we STAN Cpt Hawkeye Pierce !! In fact after this reaction I’m gonna go watch some M*A*S*H

"I love this little small town. This is so cute." You can visit that small town. The street scenes were filmed in Monrovia, California, the town I live in. The buildings still look the same even now, although some of the businesses have changed.

Martin is honest to everyone he meets about his job, but I love the line in the bar where the annoying old friend doesn't believe him and he says the line: "I work for Kentucky Fried Chicken. I sell biscuits and gravy all over the Southlands." It was my go to line for people asking me "what do you do" (I have a boring job, lol). Also, I absolutely love Minnie Driver in this movie. In my opinion, gen x movies always have the best lines and roles for women. It was definitely a time where wit and charm trumped a pretty face (not that Driver isn't GORGEOUS).

Another John Cusack movie that is great but doesn't get talked about much is "Love & Mercy" from 2014.

so "Clueless" (1995), "Grosse Pointe Blank" (1997), and "Can't Hardly Wait" (1998) are my top 3 favorite 1990s movies. 🎥🥳🎭

Just realized I hadn't seen you in a while and here you did one of my favorite 90s movies. That's it, I'm subscribing.

The guy he tried to poison at the beginning (who then had to be shot) was John's good real life friend, who also played the "Middle Aged Square" guy in High Fidelity, another great Cusack flick that every reactor should do. For this movie, I saw an interview with John where he said that after Minnie and Alan and Dan had been cast, they threw most of the written stuff away and wrote new stuff, with John, for their scenes together, and holy fuck, can I believe THAT..........what a brilliant way to work. Hats off to John for that one.

I just ended my day on the crappiest note ever and then came home to find one of my favourite reactors watching one of my favourite movies. Magic. :) Thanks, I needed this.

I saw this in the theater, and I was surprised at how different it was, especially for John Cusak. Fun movie! It's been more than 10 years since this movie came out... TEN YEARS!! TEN!! TEN YEARS!! p.s. I had not seen Pulp Fiction yet when I saw this.

Oh my God yes finally! Your my favorite reactor and I'm so thrilled you chose this movie because it is awesome!

YES!!! I’m so excited you’re watching this!!