The Long Kiss Goodnight

1996 "What's forgotten is not always gone."
6.8| 2h1m| R| en| More Info
Released: 11 October 1996 Released
Producted By: New Line Cinema
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

An amnesiac schoolteacher (Davis) sets out to recover her identity with the help of a private detective (Jackson) when they discover a dark conspiracy. Samantha Caine, suburban homemaker, is the ideal mom to her 8 year old daughter Caitlin. She lives in Honesdale, PA, is a school teacher and makes the best Rice Krispie treats in town. But when she receives a bump on her head, she begins to remember small parts of her previous life as a lethal, top-secret agent.

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Reviews

Protraph Lack of good storyline.
Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.
BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
adonis98-743-186503 A woman suffering from amnesia begins to recover her memories after trouble from her past finds her again. The Long Kiss Goodnight is the perfect example of how critics are wrong on reviewing action movies since this is one of the most underrated ones for sure. First of all the action is terrific, Geena Davis gives a hell of a perfomance as Samantha and Samuel L. Jackson is great as always and even tho it might have a close resemblance to Die Hard or Lethal Weapon it deserves to be on that damn list next to those movies and as for Harlin himself? He has made some terrible films i'll agree on that but films like Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight deserve another fair watch especially for action movie fans around the globe. (A+)
seymourblack-1 Action thrillers are designed to provide their audiences with excitement, entertainment and escapism and "The Long Kiss Goodnight" certainly meets all of these criteria. A sequence during which the movie's two main protagonists race down a corridor followed by a rapidly accelerating fireball and escape by leaping out of a high-level window exemplifies this perfectly, as the stunt, which is obviously far-fetched, is extremely exciting to watch as well as being laugh-out-loud funny. The stunts, explosions and chases in this film are all brilliantly staged and together with its very witty script and lively pace, contribute to an end product that's really enjoyable.Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) is a schoolteacher in a small town in Pennsylvania who enjoys a very pleasant lifestyle with her good natured fiancé and her young daughter. Her only real problem is that she can't remember anything about her life before the occasion eight years earlier when she was found on a New Jersey beach suffering from amnesia. Things start to change however, after she's involved in a car crash and a blow to the head triggers some disturbing flashbacks and she suddenly displays a level of dexterity with a knife that leads her to believe that, in her previous life, she must've been a chef!! Mitch Henessey (Samuel L Jackson), a private detective that Samantha had hired to check out her past, arrives at her house with some information just after she's been involved in a fight with a one-eyed convict who'd escaped from prison after seeing TV coverage of her taking part in her town's Christmas parade. This violent man obviously held her responsible for the loss of his eye and was out for revenge but the extraordinary combat skills that Samantha uses in subduing him shock both her and her fiancé.Mitch's information leads to the discovery that, in her past, Samantha had been a government assassin called Charly Baltimore who'd succeeded in preventing some corrupt CIA personnel from detonating a bomb at Niagara Falls and blaming the atrocity on terrorists in order to elicit more funding from Congress. Unfortunately, Mitch and Samantha / Charly also learn that a new group is planning to carry out a similar attack and that, as they're seen as a threat to that group, their lives are in immediate danger. Their only option is to go on the run and this leads them into further violent encounters when amongst other things, Charly gets tortured, her daughter gets kidnapped and Mitch gets seriously injured.Geena Davis and Samuel L Jackson work well individually and together in this movie. They make a great team as she excels in her role as an action heroine and he provides a whole series of marvellous one-liners. The humour that runs through the movie is also pivotal to its success because it makes the most unbelievable action sequences seem totally acceptable and induces its audience to cheerfully overlook inconvenient details such as how someone with no background and a made up name could've had the necessary formal qualifications to get a job as a schoolteacher. Similarly, the potentially negative impact of the film's high body count, strong violence and swearing is also successfully mitigated and made more acceptable because of its clever use of comedy.
FilmCriticLalitRao As the art and craft of film making is family business for many people, there is nothing wrong in making a film with your wife in a leading role but it should make some sense.One is bound to fail if the film does not convey in a positive manner what it intends to show.On a global level this is a golden mantra for all talented directors. As a film which is short of intelligent ideas,'The Long Kiss Goodnight' leaves a lot to be desired. As the director and his team have not done enough research on Amnesia, Geena Davis as a fearless butt kicking spy is more convincing than a poor Amnesia victim whose past career involved spying for US government. The film also appears to be more of a comedy film with actor Samuel.L.Jackson mouthing countless stupidities. His character has been reduced to that of a third rate stooge. By today's standards,this film's action scenes are OK. In a broader perspective,they are an important relic of a period when many action oriented films were made in Hollywood.
Robert J. Maxwell Geena Davis, an ordinary, happy housewife -- assuming ordinary housewives are happy -- is involved in a car accident on an icy road somewhere in the Northeast. Her earlier life is a blank to her, to her blandly handsome husband, and her cute little girl. After the accident, bit by bit, it occurs to her that she's been amnesic for a previous identity -- a government assassin. At least I think that's what happens. The car accident jolts her long-term memory. I'm not sure. The plot is a little fuzzy and I had a touch of amnesia myself.The reason it's fuzzy is that no one involved ever really cared about the plot in the first place. It's something of a rip off of "The Bourne Identity", "Somewhere in the Night," and a number of other stories about amnesics who regain their earlier identities. When they recover, they never find out that they'd been bus boys or bank clerks or short-order cooks. They're always highly skilled assassins.She gets her picture in the paper and the CIA, who'd thought her dead, realize that she's still alive and running around with all these secrets hidden away somewhere in her brain. The solution: kill her.Well, they do their best. Davis hooks up with the private eye next door, Samuel L. Jackson, who delivers the best performance in this dismal film. Both Davis and Jackson are tortured, kidnapped, half frozen, and battered beyond belief. I mean "beyond belief" literally. Jackson, for instance, is tied in a chair when an explosion goes off in the cellar. He's blown about two hundred feet and lands in a tree, and when he shrugs himself off, there are a few scratches on his face.When somebody rolls a hand grenade down the floor towards Davis and Jackson, they run like hell towards the nearest window. The explosion of the hand grenade is a gigantic fireball the size of the one that squeezed the monstrous guns out of Navarone. They outrun the fireball. Everybody outruns fireballs. And all this is in slow motion, just like the other action sequences.I'm not going to bother commenting further on this piece of commercial trash except to say that it's really beneath Samuel L. Jackson. He was a good sidekick in that "Die Hard" sequel and he's equally good here. A good thriller depends heavily on its villains and these aren't up to the bar -- except for One-Eyed Jack or whatever his name is, Joseph McKenna, who is so ugly his appearance will be stamped on your memory forever, even if you're an amnesic.Pfui.