Professional assassin Martin Blank is in the midst of a job in Budapest when his secretary informs him of his ten-year high school reunion. Despite his misgivings, his next assignment lands him in Detroit just in time for him to attend the reunion. His task is to eliminate a key witness in a federal case before he can testify, and there are government agents trailing him, but instead of getting to work immediately, Martin discovers that his old girlfriend Debi - the girl he stood up on prom night in 1986 when he made the decision to pursue his current career - is a disc jockey, and goes to visit her, thoroughly confusing his pursuers. Also of concern to Martin is fellow assassin Grocer, who wants to form an assassins' union (and plans to whack any hired guns who don't want to sign up with him), and has followed Martin to Detroit to "discuss" his refusal to join. As Martin and Debi patch up their almost terminally damaged relationship, and as Martin begins to find some of his former classmates' very normal lifestyles appealing, he begins to let his guard down ever so slightly - which isn't a good idea when there's yet another killer in Detroit with orders to keep him from attending any further class reunions.

What a movie! What morality! What a body count! Wait a minute, what morality? There, in a nutshell, is the best way to describe my thoughts while watching Grosse Pointe Blank, a movie which I'm sure was unexpected to everyone who watched it. The quickie tagline description - "a professional killer goes to his high-school reunion" - probably inspired many people to think about scenes of plugging all the people who ever bothered them in their senior year. Admittedly, I kind of expected that too. But what Grosse Pointe Blank turned out to be was far more interesting and unpredictable than that - thankfully, I might add, since we seem to have plenty of kids who aren't even waiting for their class reunions to wipe out their classmates.

The movie moves along at a quirky pace, stopping to concentrate on some of the least likely and least expected aspects of the story. John Cusack is the perfect actor for the lead role, expertly portraying the dawning realization that he no longer wants to be a murderer while still displaying enough cynicism and paranoia to keep us from believing he's gone completely soft. The always just-positiviely-luscious Minnie Driver (can anyone tell I really like her?) submerges her natural British accent into a neutral pseudo-American dialect which occasionally leaves her sounding a bit bored - especially in her radio scenes. (Would it have been that difficult to slip in a line about her family being relatively recent arrivals in the States?) Alan Arkin is hysterical in numerous very brief scenes as Martin's shrink, living in mortal fear of his patient. Dan Aykroyd is funnier than he's been since Ghostbusters in the role of Martin's rival assassin, but where Martin is amoral, Grocer is just plain evil, and it's a thrill to see him finally get his due, however horribly violent it may be.

And I'm sure plenty of people were up in arms about the violence in this film, a concern which is justified to some extent. The hell of it is that some of this movie's violence comes across as funny in the first half, specifically the scene in which Martin and the weird French assassin (who later gets almost the funniest line in the movie, "It is I...Cindy Feldman.") try to eliminate each other in the convenience store. In the second half, once we've come to identify with Martin as someone who has feelings after all, his approach to his job is remorseful - he hates having to do it because he'd lose any chance of ever having to pick up where he left off with Debi. In the first half of the movie, Martin isn't sorry he's killing anyone - he'd only be sorry if he got caught. But later, and especially when Debi does finally catch him literally red-handed, he's sorry he ever entered his line of work. Only when Debi's father becomes Grocer's latest target does Martin exhibit anything even approaching joy while doing what he does - and it's not so much joy as grim-faced determination and efficiency. Those final scenes, especially the killing of the two federal agents (who were superfluous throughout the movie anyway), seem to be an homage to Pulp Fiction more than anything else, and it's not hard to imagine that a more creative ending to the movie could have been written.

And finally, one of the most fascinating characters is Martin's secretary Marcella (played by Joan Cusack, John's sister). By the end of the movie, we know how Martin has become a hired killer, but how does someone become a hired killer's secretary? What moral defect allows one to arrange for so many killings, and what moral satisfaction (if any) is there in not being the one who actually pulls the trigger? In fact, though it's never really explicitly hinted at in the movie, all of the coincidental trouble Martin runs into could be explained by someone working against him on the inside. And when Martin, telling her to "dismantle" the office, tells her that he'll come find her, she does seem just a little bit nervous...

• screenplay by Tom Jankiewicz and D.V. DeVincentis & Steve Pink & John Cusack
• story by Tom Jankiewicz
• directed by George Armitage
• music by Joe Strummer
• Cast: John Cusack (Martin Q. Blank), Minnie Driver (Debi Newberry), Alan Arkin (Dr. Oatman), Dan Aykroyd (Grocer), Joan Cusack (Marcella), Hank Azaria (Lardner), K. Todd Freeman (McCullen), Mitchell Ryan (Mr. Newberry), Jeremy Piven (Paul Spericki), Michael Cudlitz (Bob Destepello), Denny Urquidez (Felix), Duffy Taylor (Ultimart Carl), Audrey Kissel (Arlene), Carlos Scott (Ken), Brian Powell (Husky Man), Ann Cusack (Amy), D.V. DeVincentis (Dan Koretzky), Barbara Harris (Mary Blank), Wendy Thorlakson (Melanie the waitress), Belita Moreno (Mrs. Kinetta), Pat O'Neill (Nathaniel), Jenna Elfman (Tanya), Steve Pink (Terry Rostend), K.K. Dodds (Tracy), Bill Cusack (Waiter), Traci Dority (Jenny Slater), Doug Dearth (Eckhart), Colby French (Bartender), Brent Armitage (Cosmo), Jackie Rubin (Marie), Sarah DeVincentis (Dr. Oatman's patient), Eva Rodriguez (Nurse), David Barrett (Bicycle Messenger), Bobby Bass (Assassin), Lance Gilbert (Assassin), Pete Antico (Assassin), Laurence Bilzerian (Assassin)