When Your Past Comes Armed and Dangerous

Read Time:5 Minute, 11 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
The Long Kiss Goodnight [Limited Edition]
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Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Year Released: 1996, Arrow Video 4K 2025
Runtime: 2h
Director(s): Renny Harlin
Writer(s): Shane Black
Cast: Geena Davis, Samuel L. Jackson, Yvonne Zima, Craig Bierko, Tom Amandes, Brian Cox, Patrick Malahide, David Morse, Joseph McKenna, Melina Kanakaredes, Dan Warry-Smith
Where to Watch: Available April 8, 2025. Pre-order your copy here: www.arrowvideo.com, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: What begins like a domestic drama with a twist of mystery quickly snowballs into a full-blown genre blender with car chases, explosions, espionage reveals, and a buddy-cop vibe that’s more screwball than procedural. THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT is the film that doesn’t care if you’re keeping up—it’s too busy shifting gears mid-scene and throwing taunts between gunfire.

At the heart of this high-stakes chaos is Samantha Caine, a quiet schoolteacher with no memory of her life before washing ashore eight years earlier. But when a local parade appearance leads to someone from her past recognizing her, everything she thought she knew is called into question. She soon discovers her name was Charly Baltimore, and she was trained to eliminate threats and not plan parent-teacher conferences. With danger closing in, she partners with private investigator Mitch Henessey, a sarcastic, underqualified PI with questionable ethics and a knack for being in the wrong place at the worst time.

The appeal here isn’t just the action, though there’s plenty of that—it’s how the film blends contrasting energies. It flips between suburban satire, sharp-edged spy thriller, and mid-90s action excess without ever completely settling. Samantha’s shift into Charly doesn’t get as much emotional breathing room as it deserves, which makes some of the development feel rushed. There’s a psychological minefield the film hints at but never truly explores. Instead, it often opts for stylized combat and snarky back-and-forth to move the plot forward, a trade-off that mostly works, even if it shortchanges some potentially rich character moments.

One thing the movie gets right is its pairing of Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. Their chemistry carries the narrative even when the story’s logic wobbles. Davis is tasked with playing two extremes of the same character—maternal and lethal—and while she’s more convincing in the early scenes, she grows into the sharper edges as the story intensifies. Meanwhile, Jackson plays Henessey like he has nothing to prove but everything to gain. He doesn’t always feel central to the plot, but his presence is essential to its tempo, especially in scenes that require levity.

The script, written by Shane Black, delivers the kind of dialogue you’d expect—brisk, biting, and delivered with the timing of someone who’s done this before. The snappiness keeps things moving, but it can sometimes feel like style takes the wheel while substance rides shotgun. For every clever line or memorable gag, there’s a missed opportunity to dive deeper into the emotional layers beneath the action. And while there’s charm in the banter, a few of the supporting characters—particularly the villains—don’t get enough attention to become anything more than placeholders for the next shootout.

What sets this film apart from the pack isn’t its plot—memory-loss thrillers aren’t rare—but rather the fact that it centers on a woman in a role that, at the time, was overwhelmingly occupied by men. Casting Davis as the lead was bold, especially in a decade where female action leads were often exceptions rather than the norm. The movie doesn’t constantly wave a banner about it, either. It just lets her shoot, curse, and improvise through near-death scenarios like any genre veteran would. That confidence is where the movie shines the brightest.

That said, the film wasn’t welcomed with open arms when it was first released and was met with lukewarm box office numbers and divided critics. In hindsight, that may have had more to do with a mismatched marketing campaign than the actual product. The genre was crowded, the tone was hard to pin down, and the Christmas setting might’ve thrown some audiences off. However, time has a way of revealing a project’s value, and this one has developed a solid cult following for good reason.

THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT isn’t trying to be a prestige thriller or a groundbreaking commentary. Its content is bold, brash, and a little weird. And there’s value in that. It captures a flavor of mid-90s action filmmaking that blends over-the-top spectacle with oddball character pairings and a few jabs at convention. It might not hit every mark perfectly, but it has enough literal and narrative firepower to keep you engaged from start to finish.

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[photo courtesy of ARROW VIDEO, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

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