The Long Kiss Goodnight
1996 · 120 min.
Review
Machine-translated from Danish.
With its imaginative action scenes, Renny Harlin's latest action thriller The Long Kiss Goodnight does not differ from the other high-quality action blockbusters of the day. "The Kiss" is different in another respect, however. For this time the action hero is a heroine, credibly played, what's more, by Harlin's delicate-looking but tough wife, Geena Davis.
Samantha Caine is a schoolteacher in a small provincial town, where she has lived with her husband and daughter Caitlin since the day ten years ago when Samantha woke up on a beach without the faintest memory of her life. Mitch Henessey is the shabby private detective number 117 she has hired to trace her past. But one day there is suddenly a bite, and Samantha sets out with Mitch to discover her forgotten past. Before that, Samantha has been hunted by hitmen in her own home. So there are signs that Samantha's former life was neither entirely ordinary nor entirely harmless.
Samantha's original identity, Charly Baltimore, does not have much in common with the sweet housewife Samantha. As Samantha has to deal with sharpshooting villains in her hunt for the truth, she remembers more and more and gradually becomes almost identical with her old self, to Mitch's great astonishment. For Charly is in reality a secret government agent and state-licensed killer, and Samantha is the cover-up she herself arranged.
Charly still has enemies; why she does not know, but she decides to find out!
The Long Kiss Goodnight is quite James Bond-like in its lack of realism. As the headline of Berlingske's review put it: "Villains Can't Shoot Straight", and Charly does indeed survive the most incredible things. It must be said, though, that Harlin had originally written a different and rather sadder ending for the film, but it was (naturally) changed after the test screenings.
As well as being breathlessly exciting, the film is also rather funny, so funny that you could almost call it an action comedy. It is especially in the dialogue between Mitch and Charly that the laughs come.
