Alternate Best Actor 1997: John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank

John Cusack did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Martin Q. Blank in Grosse Pointe Blank. 

Grosse Pointe Blank is an entertaining comedy about a hit-man returning to his hometown for a high school reunion. Interestingly also features 2 of the eventual Oscar nominees for supporting actress delivering superior performances than their Oscar nominated turns. 

Once again returning to John Cusack for the fourth review in a short amount of time, after successfully avoiding Cusack reviews for the longest time, we once again return to where perhaps Cusack is most at home, by in a way changing up the expectations a bit. Cusack made his name in teen romantic comedies in the late 1980s, and this film is essentially a basic subversion of that. One side of it is that it takes place ten years after his time in high school, the central set-piece being Martin's high school reunion, the other being that he's also a hitman, dealing with a jealous and controlling hitman Grocer (Dan Aykroyd) wanting to set-up a hitman union while also attempting to deal with somewhat more expected ideas of returning to one's high school. In turn, this performance from Cusack is both the expected Cusack performance and not the expected Cusack performance and combined that really is the beauty of this performance. 

On one hand, you do get Cusack being the sort of fresh-faced, slightly less of a youngster this time around, whose certain charm is kind of based on the fact that he's not quite sure of his charm in a way. Cusack delivers that once again here, but again the comedy of this comes in the form that we have an alternative knowledge about his character as a psychopathic hitman whom we know from the opening scene where he carries out a somewhat bungled job involving multiple hit-men. It is a wonderful combination because Cusack manages to play Martin both as a hitman, and not as a hitman, it is that grey area I think that defines so much of the comedy of the film, which is rather winning in its own way. Cusack establishes this in the early scenes where he speaks to his assistant (Joan Cusack) or his scared psychiatrist (Alan Arkin), about his "job". Cusack's particular casual indifference about it is where the comedy is, as his fixation in terms of concern is far more on the fear of the prospect of his high school reunion than his series of murders.

 

The comedic value of Cusack's performance comes very much from the consistency of his turn here in portraying that sort of blithe indifference about the man's murders, even going so far as to bluntly tell all his old school friends that he was in fact a hitman without hesitation, all of them taking it as a joke initially. The clearest break from this actually being in his hilarious scenes with Aykroyd where in a way you could say Martin is most himself in plying his trade with a fellow craftsman in their moments of mutual hatred for one another. The random, and even kind of goofy, intensity Cusack and Aykroyd share together is rather fantastic. This is particularly well shown in a breakfast diner confrontation where both rush through their lines in such a great way as basically every line being this barb at one another, while their eyes providing the dagger. Again the juxtaposition being the great bits of comedy as the two exist in a seemingly normal reality, while both being focused on their act of killing. I especially love Cusack's extreme way of arguing with the waitress as he tries to run through his order including an empty omelette with his forcefulness of just saying he "wants the protein" to try to end the conversation as soon as possible. 

 

There is more going though as we find in the central romance with Minnie Driver's Debi, whom Martin left cold prom night. Cusack and Driver's chemistry is pretty great here in just this off-beat nature of it. As it is eccentric, charged, but also traditionally sweet. They capture instantly this old fashioned connection but doing so in an oddball way as again Cusack always portraying Martin as psychopathic to an extent even in the way he navigates this relationship with this kind of interesting distance, that makes his sort of verbalization of his feelings towards the end of it actually feel natural because that is how Martin would approach it. Cusack though is fantastic throughout the man seeing his old life as he has great moments of comedy, love particularly his creepy way of hanging out with an old friend who is a real estate agent by saying he would like a "wife" just like the one a potential customer has in a perfectly oddly creepy way. He also though does have moments of theoretical pathos such as going to see his dad's grave or visit his mom in a mental ward. Cusack's actually great by not putting too much on it, rather showing Martin's sense of it in a very Martin way. Cusack's performance is winning here because he actually so well defines his character within the idea of the hitman always being the hitman, even in the moments of theoretical humanity. He never becomes a good guy, he rather states his change of heart in the way a psychopath would, which in a way makes it an atypical comedy, but one that works. Cusack's performance in turn is an atypical romantic lead, but one that works because his performance matches and in many ways creates the film's off-beat energy just as it should. He is a proper psychopath, but one you do end up liking whether he's murdering another hitman, or finding what seems like true love for himself.