Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Samantha Caine is a small-town schoolteacher and mom with no memory of her life before washing up on a beach eight years ago. After a car accident and a violent home invasion trigger flashes of her past, she discovers she used to be a deadly CIA assassin. Teaming up with a wisecracking private investigator, Samantha must return to her old ways to take down the people who tried to erase her.
The Long Kiss Goodnight is a slick, entertaining 90s action-thriller with a strong Shane Black-scripted premise — an amnesiac assassin rediscovering her lethal past has genuine genre appeal. Geena Davis commits fully and Samuel L. Jackson provides reliable wisecracking chemistry. The cinematography is competent but unremarkable for the era. The film's novelty lies in its female action-hero framing and Shane Black's sharp dialogue, though the conspiracy plot gets increasingly convoluted. The ending resolves things but leans into over-the-top action excess at the expense of emotional payoff, feeling rushed and formulaic for the climax.