Have You Seen: The Long Kiss Goodnight?

Back in 1996 or so, I remember sitting in the theater waiting for the latest Jackie Chan import to start when that trailer up there started playing and all I can remember is “Hurry the fuck up and and gimmie some Jackie!”. I mean peep the trailer if you haven’t already and tell me the first half doesn’t put you to sleep. Then, suddenly, shit gets awesome. The guy from “Pulp Fiction” is in here, some pretty cool looking action sequences follow and then that music. That music that made my fucking jaw drop to the floor so hard, I knew I had to check this film out as soon as it was released. The Enigma track “The Eyes Of Truth” was subsequently used in other trailers (most popular probably being the first trailer for “The Matrix”) but I’ll always remember this being the one that put me on to it. And when the film finally was released, the Renny Harlin-helmed “The Long Kiss Goodnight” turned out to be a fun action flick with some great performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Brian Cox & even Geena Davis.

The action set pieces were pretty good, the theme of faking a terrorist attack to gain government funding now seems a little ahead of it’s time (almost makes you wonder if Dick Cheney based his entire career on this film’s premise) but one of the things that still stands out to me is the strong female lead in Charly Baltimore. To this day, I have yet to see a female lead in an action role as good as what Geena Davis did with the Baltimore character here. Not being a fan of the actress, this still reigns as my favorite role for her yet and the character’s namesake has been popular enough for a the great Notorious B.I.G. to name a female protege of his after her and even named a song on his last album after the title of the film (produced by The RZA). Shit, I even named one of my dogs “Charly” after her.

The film is far from perfect but overall it’s an entertaining watch. A solid mix of action, humor and some overall great performances really make it shine. “The Long Kiss Goodnight” is available on Netflix Streaming now and was just released on Blu-Ray this month, if that’s your medium. Give it a chance, you might not be disappointed. And if you do watch it, let us know what you thought!