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The problem isn't Cusack's nervous guy shtick, although it’s an imperfect fit. It isn't even Minnie Driver and her flawless impersonation of Andie MacDowell. The problem is this is supposed to be a romantic comedy, so the characters are required to be a two dimensional collection of genre specific quirks and tics. But here, the film around them changes tone so often that at any given moment at least one character feels completely out of place. Grosse Pointe Blank imitates spy films, rom-coms, action thrillers, farce, drama...all ineffectively. Nothing is allowed enough time to work before the story moves on. It gives the movie a choppy, uneven feel.

That's not to say I don't like parts of it. Cusack is no more or less appealing than he normally is. His sister Joan is amusing as his secretary, Marcella. I like the idea of Grosse Pointe Blank (a triple entendre, by the way) as a comedy about a hired killer with a wacky personal life, I just don't like the execution. The hit man thing isn't a problem; the handful of times we see Blank do his thing, it’s handled pretty deftly. But having a degree from the Ted Bundy School of Relationships does not make for a very appealing hero. And the high school reunion is a contrivance that forces the soundtrack to rely on songs and the screenplay to rely on situations that call attention to Cusack the actor - which makes him less credible as Martin Blank.

It all just adds to the film's jumbled and distracting tone, which makes the individual performances that much more important. Too bad, because as I already mentioned, that’s a grab bag. Minnie Driver is adorable, but unconvincing. Dan Aykroyd is many things, but he's no action star. It’s obvious the last weapon he held was one of the plastic ray guns from Ghostbusters. Lots of actors blink when they shoot, but Aykroyd squints and winces so badly that it actually breaks the illusion of character. And speaking of characters, Grocer is a perplexing one. As the antagonist, he dutifully appears at all the required story beats but he rarely feels like a part of the action.

It’s a wasted opportunity for a guy who’s capable of much more than this.

The last act of the film adopts an extremely dark tone that's a huge contrast to the rest of the film. I won't spoil anything but to say that it's thick with slapstick rated R violence, and a lot of nervous monologuing from Cusack. But it ultimately feels anticlimactic and trite. Grosse Pointe Blank might have benefited by spreading some of that imagery around to a handful of other scenes. There still wouldn't be a lot of laugh out loud moments, but it might have provided the film with some much needed balance.

I guess how you feel about Grosse Pointe Blank depends on what you see when you watch a life affirming Romantic Stalker Classic. Do you see a funny love story with a twist? A crime thriller with a vaguely erotic side? A wacky comedy with a lot of mugging and pratfalls? A sensitive drama about loss and starting over? A send-up of teenage angst? You're in luck on all counts, because Grosse Pointe Blank is random bits of all those things. Unfortunately, it never puts enough of them in the right order long enough to really work.

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