The Long Kiss Goodnight: A Challenge to the Establishment - Part II

The film now moves into the final act where all the critical pieces -characters, plot elements, and real World implications- fall into place.

Revelations and Confrontation
Baltimore doesn't yet know that Timothy has kidnapped Caitlin and after saving Henessey from some henchmen, she one seems ready to thoroughly abandon her life as Samantha Caine - the image of her daughter with Hal in the church, it seems, had only moved her momentarily. However, that changes. Timothy calls Henessey's cell phone (after getting the number from Caitlin) and says he will kill the girl unless Baltimore gives herself up - with Baltimore captured or dead, any loose ends from the bomb plot will be severed. It is this key moment, one where she must decide whether to serve herself or her child, that Baltimore goes back to being Caine and agrees to Timothy's demands... but she also out manuevers him on his own chessboard.

By using a bit of cleverness with a phone company, Caine and Henessey track Timothy to a town near Niagara Falls. Much to their surprise, Perkins is also there with all of his henchmen. They go ahead anyway with the rescue of Caitlin, but end up captured.

Here, the final pieces fall into place: just what is Perkins really up to? And what does Timothy's gang have to do with it? From what we know, Perkins' agency is due for an appropriations hearing and is not likely to be granted much funding due to them losing Charlene Baltimore - they though she was dead, but her resurrection proved problematic. We also find out that the US Congress cut the budget of Perkins's agency and the Presidents earlier hinted that these prospective funds are going into social spending. Thus, to secure more funding, Perkins put together a plan in motion: hire Daedalus and Timothy, arms dealers who were on a hit list 8 years ago, the one that Charlene Baltimore failed to execute; give them the security and means to carry out a huge terrorist attack; then blame the lack of funding and "Muslim terrorists" for what happened. A seemingly perfect, and quite simple, recipe for False Flag Terror. Note that the 1993 bombing on the World Trade Center is mentioned: "...it's not unthinkable they [the CIA] paved the way for the bombing purely to justify a budget increase."

Two major scenes with Perkins:

First scene is in the beginning of the film

with Perkins talking with the US President.
Second is the final revelation of Perkins' plan.

From what we know the bombing will be "right in the center of town" and this final staging area is right by Niagara Falls on the US-Canada border. So what is the target city? Buffalo, NY? Montreal, Canada? It doesn't really matter, since such a huge attack on a border city would surely alert the nations on both sides. It is also Christmas Eve and the bomb is primed to go off at midnight, the first minute of Christmas Day. Perkins also plans to "blame it on the Muslims, naturally" and Timothy even laughs when this line is spoken, because he knows it's deliberate misdirection. Given that every agent and government assassin in the film has an alias (like "Daedalus") this also brings to question whether "Timothy" and "Mr. Perkins" are real names. In all likelihood they are probably just aliases, as well.

So what does this mean? Who could possibly benefit from having the United States and Canada both reacting to "Muslim" terror? Why don't we allow Mr. Netanyahu to answer to that question with a comment that he gave about an eerily similar situation. Note the ridiculous accusation directed at Iran, as well as comparing the Islamic Republic to his favorite boogeyman, at the end of what he has to say. The blatant hypocrisy is that Israel has an entire nuclear stockpile and has a very aggressive policy toward its neighbors, while Iran, has no nuclear stockpile and doesn't continually make aggressive pushes at its borders or in politics. Despite these facts, the aforementioned Zionist Criminal has the shamelessness to lie to the World. This revealing documentary, along with this one, as well as this news article provides further light on he was talking about.

Also, note the line, "Congress blinded us overseas." That seems to be the main motivating factor for Perkins's false flag terror plot. If he is so concerned with having funds available for operations overseas, he just may be working for, or funneling the funds into, a foreign state - the one that he is a parasite for.

Caine and Henessey, with cooperation and some orchestrated chaos of their own, manage to subdue many of the villains and foil the entire plot. By this point, director Renny Harlin has created a very unconventional movie for its genre, but given the fact that it was funded by Hollywood, he probably conceded a bit on the grimness of the ending or making the real World implications more overt. Screenwriter Shane Black, based much of his script from non-mainstream information about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing - note the truck bomb parallel here. Also, in the version of the script that Black sold (for a record price at the time), Henessey ends up dying from the wounds he receives while fighting in the final act. This would probably be a more "real World" ending, but the film, as released, does give a positive fate to an honorable character. Having started out as a disgraced cop, former prison inmate, and small-time scheming private detective, Henessey ends up answering to the sudden call of duty. He could have abandoned Caine before they even got to the train station where they were to meet Waldman, but he decided to stay on course. It was a very rough and dangerous course, but Henessey didn't back down or cower out.

In addition, the ending challenges established conventions by not having Perkins killed off. His fate is off screen, but it is said that he was arrested and indicted in multiple counts of high treason. Many action movies succumb to providing the cheap thrill of having the main antagonist annihilated in spectacular fashion. The situation in which that happens often feels forced and latched onto the film just for the sake of having some extra satisfying violence.

The identity of Charlene Elizabeth Baltimore is also done away with and the protagonist goes back to being Samantha Caine. In the final scene, with money from the safe deposit box that was going to be used by the shady government agency, Caine drives to a farm where Hal and Caitlin await her. She is back to her long brown hair, but still shows that she can handle a throwing knife. The final shot is in golden sun light over a farm and fields (contrast to the bleak farm earlier where torture took place) and a song plays with the lyrics "I just wanna be free" - the Aryan symbolism is quite unmistakable. In fact, it's the most obvious at this last point in the movie.

Bits and Pieces
As with any great film, there are many minor details here that fit into the overall themes.

When Caine realizes that she can cut vegetables and handle a knife, she ends the scene by throwing the kitchen knife into a wall and impaling a pepper. This relates the flashback when she is shown fighting One Eyed Jack (the first assassin to visit her) - she gave him that one eyed face by stabbing him with a syringe in face. Also, the line "I used to be a chef!" seems to link assassins and food - when talking about prepping the bomb that is to go off at the end, Timothy says, "I just have to make the soup" referring to the device's chemical ingredients. Also Perkins' first scene is in a kitchen with the US President. Then of course, One Eyed Jack gets the pie in his face.

Mr. Perkins's name, being both the name of principle villain and the name of Caitlin's teddy bear, is interesting. The image of the bear was used during the Cold War to represent the USSR, which was still on the map in the 1980s when Caine worked for Perkins. The Cold War was also a false dichotomy held together by fear of nuclear strike - the War on Terror, which Perkins seems keen on starting up in 1996, is also such charade, but with fear of terrorist attack. Also, two bears play-fighting appear briefly on a TV at one point in the film.

The beginning of the film shows some background on Henessey, who has an estranged wife and son. The wife refuses to even talk to him, while the son isn't so cold, but ends up not accepting a birthday present from his father. This depressing event could have been an excuse for Henessey to hit the alcohol and drink to forget his troubles, but it is right then that Trin notifies Henessey of the lead she found and he gets right to work on it.

The second hotel room where Caine and Henessey stay is all gold. They go there after clearing out Daedalus' farm hideout where Caine fell into her Baltimore personality. This marks the lowest point in Caine's character and she is at her most selfish right in this room. The hotel is located in Atlantic City and thus right next to plenty of casinos, which goes hand-in-hand with Caine's temporary arrogance. She even seems to be on her way to becoming a Lone Wolf Archetype, however, by the end of the film, she and Henessey actually end up as anti-Lone Wolves. It is by their cooperation that they win and they do not use their victory for self-serving purposes. Caine has the money that she took from the safety deposit box, but seeing where she is at the end, on a farm and not a personal palace, and the fact that she chose to go back to her life as a teacher and raise her daughter, she may very well have given a lot of that extra money away for a charitable cause.

Lastly, another bit of convention challenging is one of the most obvious, and therefore most overlooked: the title - The Long Kiss Goodnight. It is uttered only once and only in the gold hotel room where Charlene Baltimore says that she has kissed Samantha Caine goodnight. The title is interesting when you think of other action film titles: Lone Wolf McQuade, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and others. They seem to clamor for that "bad ass" factor, yet this film proves that you cannot judge a film by its title - if you do you might think that this is romance movie. Renny Harlin directed a few studio financed movies where his creative control was limited and, in fact, the full title of Die Hard 2 is Die Hard 2: Die Harder. Perhaps he realized how ridiculous and forced that sounds. The title Cutthroat Island is also a slight deviation from convention as movies may have "bad ass" titles, but "cutthroat" is a little more grim and violent sounding for a title than most others.

Conclusion
This was not a popular move at the box office and it was likely that the overt challenge to Hollywood's conventions was what fated it as such. Even today, this film is very different character-wise and plot-wise than what comes out of the Hollywood Film Factory. Renny Harlin's career went into turmoil after this second-in-row big-budget failure. On the flipside, Michael Bay has enjoyed great success in creating goy biscuits for the brainless masses thanks to money from Bruckheimer (Jew) with whom he collaborated up until 2003, but now collaborates with Steven Spielberg (Jew) who produces the Transformers franchise, which is due to have a third entry next year.

Renny Harlin has made some lower quality work as of late, since he doesn't have much means in making a living as a director now. His subsequent films veered away from the ethical positives presented in Cutthroat Island and this film. However, Harlin's skill as an action director kept going strong for some years; 1999's Deep Blue Sea (basically Jaws with many sharks), 2001's Driven (about professional racing), and 2004's Mindhunters (an elaborate slasher film) still display his trademark style of tight action sequences with mixes of slow motion and are artistically superior to most entries into their respective genres - though the scripts leave much to be desired.

Recently, Harlin finished a film project about the conflict in Southern Ossetia that caused shockwaves in the fall of 2008. Knowing his daring style, he just might get into some taboo ground about the real reasons for international conflict and ethnic strife. Currently, Harlin is shooting a biopic about Marshal Mannerheim in his native Finland - whether this film falls prey to WW2 myth or dares to venture into rationalist and revisionist territory is still to be seen.

The Long Kiss Goodnight: A Challenge to the Establishment - Part I

A largely overlooked, yet excellent, thriller film from 1996 is The Long Kiss Goodnight directed by Renny Harlin. The preceding year Harlin had directed Cutthroat Island and both movies shared a similar fate: general obscurity, but with a small fan base. The big action blockbuster hit of 1996 was The Rock directed by Michael Bay who also helmed the sleeper-hit of 1995 with Bad Boys. Both of Bay's movies were produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (Jew) and are supremely bland, cardboard cut-out quality action films. Perhaps, The Rock is slightly helped by Hans Zimmer's excellent score, but all that means is that you should get the soundtrack! Avoid the movie.

In the big budget film industry, Michael Bay and Renny Harlin went on to become dynamic opposites, just like their movies. Bad Boys was just a buddy cop comedy with blatant machismo and MTV style editing - Michael Bay started his directing career making music videos - and the movie went on to becoming the surprise hit of 1995. Cutthroat Island was film about honorable cooperation between characters with skillfully choreographed action sequences - Renny Harlin started in film with some shorts before securing funding for feature length projects - with some minor hits during his first Hollywood years he temporarily sold his artistry and made a Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger. These films, while perhaps slightly above par in their respective genres, were not really all that special in any way, but they did build up Harlin's reputation and he was finally given practically full creative control on his next project, Cutthroat Island. Unfortunately that movie flopped with only $10 million at the box office, a measly sum compared to the film's $100 million dollar budget.

Did this deter Harlin? Did he realize that he must conform to Hollywood's unwritten rules to have a career there? He probably did realize, but guess what he didn't do? Conform. The Long Kiss Goodnight shares many thematic similarities with Cutthroat Island and it was also a flop with just over $33 million box office earnings from a $65 million budget. Like it's predecessor, the film also forges new ground and challenges Tinseltown's bigoted conventions. It also, in a somewhat subtle way, challenges ZC.

Not your typical action flick

The Beginning
The movie begins in an small All-American down during the Christmas season with Samantha Caine narrating about her happy, but unusual life. She is a teacher at an elementary school, has a daughter, Caitlin, and lives with a boyfriend, Hal, in a comfortable suburban house. The usual part is that Caine is only 8 years old! She awoke on a beach 8 years ago with many scars and was 2 months pregnant at the time. Her amnesia prevents her from remembering anything that led to that point. She has hired detectives to investigate her past, but they didn't manage to find out anything of significance. Now she is down to hiring "the cheap ones" as her eagerness to find out perseveres.

Mitch Henessey is this cheap detective and he is certainly a man of moral ambiguity. His introductory scene has him barging in on a man with a prostitute and slyly getting the man to bribe him in order to keep the incident quiet. It is only in the next scene that we find out that he is actually Caine's PI and that the "prostitute" in the scene was actually his coworker - they run a little scheme to earn extra cash.

In these beginning scenes we also meet the mysterious Mr. Perkins, a shady government agent, who runs a spy network and needs more funding approved by the President to carry out certain operations. And there is also Timothy, a criminal though it seems like he is very organized and capable - perhaps he could even be called a "terrorist."

These beginning scenes also show that something is not right with Samantha Caine, she begins to recall little bits and pieces of what must be her past life. First, she begins to expertly cut vegetables in the kitchen - "I used to be a chef!" - before throwing a knife and impaling a pepper in the wall, much to the shock of Hal and Caitlin. Then, she yells at her daughter for crying after she falls over skating, but then forgets the specifics of what she said to Caitlin. The third and final thing that gets Caine to seek out her past is a visit from a one-eyed assassin - "I want my eye back, bitch!" - who, after a pretty rough fight, Caine manages to take out. This fight also ends with some interesting genre breaking - she takes the villain down by smashing a pie into his face. This image is rampant in cartoon gags and most often ends in a harmless laugh. Yet here it results in a violent knockout - the glass plate that the pie was on smashes against the assassin's face and he falls to the ground and Caine breaks his neck. The movie just told the audience that cartoon violence doesn't exist - it's a myth.

That scene is also the second neck breaking of the film. The first one is actually right near the beginning as Caine is taking a drunken party guest home, who starts to act up in the car, and this distraction proves nearly fatal - there's a deer on the road, hypnotized by the headlights. The car hits the deer which flies through part of the windshield and hits the drunken guy, the car goes out of control and hits a tree, Caine flies out through the windshield. This is where she gets her first flashbacks, by seeing herself surreal mirror. Note that mirrors contain silver. Later, a real mirror will serve up a key revelation as the truth gets closer to surface. This scene also has another key image: the deer that was hit is not dead, but twitching its broken body in the snow. Caine sees the deer, which is bleeding only from its neck - failed kosher slaughter - so Caine ends the suffering with a swift neck break.

There is also an interesting bit of character conventions being smashed. Trin, Henessey's secretary, is first shown as a prostitute in the trick that she and Henessey pull off to get some cash. Many female roles are sexualized in Hollywood, and small roles like Trin's might as well be prostitutes - they're just there to fill a quota or for "diversity" but are thrown away soon. Trin, though a small role, is not at all like this. She is still dressed in a sexualized way, though this is probably just a character idiosyncrasy of hers, but the important thing is that she figures out a key piece of evidence that allows Henessey to resume his investigation of Caine's past. Thus, she is not just a regular sideline bimbo - the quality of her character is quite the opposite.

Pieces of the Past
Trin's investigation provided a phone number and this ends up being a former contact that Caine had years ago. The contact, Mr. Waldman, intructs her to a meeting point at a train station for the next day. That night, however, Caine's past starts to come more and more to the surface. Henessey notices that she begins to curse more. She also finds a disassembled rifle and an assassin's knife in a hidden compartment of her suitcase. She puts the rifle together - in front of a mirror, the film's second mirror - and then sees the image of herself from the surreal mirror... the image lashes out of the mirror with the knife! This ends up being only a dream, but the rifle that Caine put together is there. Henessey, surprised by the rifle, thinks that Caine is crazy and begins to head home. In the car he then proceeds into a lament of how he ended up working as a cheap private eye: he used to be a big city cop, but after trying to steal some bonds to make quick cash he was busted and spent four years in prison. "I never did one thing right in my life. That takes skill," says Henessey with a glum look. He then decides to not head home and actually take Caine to meet Mr. Waldman. This scene aptly shows a key change in Henessey - he finally follows through with something and not just for his own gain, he take a vital step towards a sense of duty.

At the train station, we meet Timothy once again. He tries to see if Caine will recognize him, but she doesn't. Apparently, he is a part of her past. A key part at that, since he orders some goons to kill Caine and Henessey! As a gentleman approaches Caine, she thinks he may be Waldman, but he man draws a gun. In a quick reaction, almost soldierly, Caine reaches into Henessey's coat and shoots the would-be-killer. They decide to run for it, but more assassins swarm into the station and open fire with Caine and Henessey barely managing to make it out. This scene is also another key genre breaker as at least 20 innocent people get caught in the cross fire. Bystander deaths are still a taboo in Hollywood movies, despite many of them containing raging shootouts. Harlin, however, just shows violence for what it is - grim and bloody.

After making it out of the train station they finally meet the real Waldman who instantly recognizes Caine and tells her the truth about her past, which makes sense of those small past moments - she used to be Charlene Elizabeth Baltimore, an assassin working for the United States Government and it was Waldman who trained her. Note how she is told all this: as Waldman looks at her through the rearview mirror of the car - the third key mirror of the film, it's not part of a dream or hallucination, it is just plain real and right in front of Caine. She learns the truth in steps through silver.

Henessey doubts all that is said and convinces Caine to abandon Waldman, which they promptly do. Caine doesn't believe Waldman, since all evidence points to her being formerly engaged to a man named Luke - doesn't sound like a secret agent story. However, there is a great flip of reality next - "engaged" is actually code for "assassin ready to strike" and the whole character of Samantha Caine was actually a cover story invented by one Charlene Baltimore (Caine's real identity) as a part of her moving in to kill a target, an arms dealer named Daedalus (for whom "Luke" serves as a cover). Also, as things turn out, Timothy is a key enforcer for Luke/Daedalus and promptly shows up at the farm and Caine, Henessey, and Waldman are taken prisoner.

Daedulus needs to find out why his former would-be-assassin has all of a sudden shown up at his hideout. So he tortures Caine on a water wheel, and this wheel is shown to have a three-diameter/six-point design. Waldman has already been killed, drowned beneath the wheel. While submerged, Caine's past comes back to her in full and she takes up her former role of assassin and gets out of another tight situation - by finding a hidden gun that Waldman previously mentioned having on his person, she shoot Daedalus, thus completing her mission from 8 years ago.

There is some interesting imagery in this part of the film. First off, the water wheel, a farm tool (the scene takes place on a farm) used to torture Caine, can be seen as a way of getting Aryanism to collapse in on itself by using Aryan symbols to destroy Aryanism. The real World stigmatization of the Swastika is an example.

The scene also avoids what would have been some straightforward sensationalism by not showing much of the violence. Instead, the film cuts to Henessey, who has been chained up a cellar. We then hear shooting break out for a few seconds and then... quiet. The sounds of violence end just as quickly as they had started and this image is shown:

Caine stands at the top of a pyramid composition. Symbolically, she has just destroyed the classic pyramid metaphor for elitism, the most infamous of which is on the back of the US Dollar bill. Notice, that there are 13 steps completely shown in the shot, while the lower ones get cut off. The Eye of Zion pyramid on the one dollar bill has 13 brick layers with the Eye at the top. Caine has effectively replaced the Eye at the top of the power structure. She uses to new found power to free Henessey, who is trapped below. Note that even before this shot, there is a more subliminal pyramid formed by the rays of light that come through the ceiling as Henessey looks up when he hears the shooting. This symbolism will be relevant during the film's final revelations.

Putting it Together
The mysterious Mr. Perkins re-enters the plot at this point. Note that Caitlin's teddy bear is named Mr. Perkins, it must have been a present from her mother, and the name didn't come from just anywhere - Mr. Perkin's is Caine's former boss, the one who assigned her to kill Daedalus. As things turned out, Mr. Perkins has actually hired Daedalus and Timothy for some mysterious job. We get a hint of this in Perkins' first scene has he talks to the US President about securing more funding, but the situation looks unfavorable since Perkin's must explain how he lost track of an agent, while the President simply says that the money will be better off in Healthcare. This scene even takes place in a kitchen, but why a kitchen? Doesn't the US President have a better place to meet with his advisors? I think it is to show the invasive nature of Perkins as well as him trying to "feed bullshit" to the President - Perkins is a parasitic advisor.

Also, worth noting is that the actor who plays Perkins, Patrick Malahide, also played the corrupt Governor Ainslee in Cutthroat Island just a year before and also directed by Renny Harlin. Thematically, these two characters are very much alike - self-serving, law breaking, out for their own gain without regard for others. Though Ainslee was just an opportunist, while Perkins is ready to do some serious manipulating to get the situation to conform to his liking. Just what might this be? We shall soon find out.

Meanwhile, Caine seems to be enjoying her new self - "The name's Charly... the spy! Please to meet you." She even cuts her hair and dyes it blonde, as she saw herself in the vision from the past. Henessey, however, doesn't like this new change and says that the personality for Samantha Caine must have come from somewhere, to which Caine (now as Baltimore) just scoffs. She even tore up and threw out her pictures of Hal and Caitlin and even offers Henessey a romp, which he refuses. This is another bit of character genre breaking. Stereotypically, the Black man lusts after the White blonde woman, but here it is the White blonde who is the lusty one and despite having a sure chance, Henessey backs away and tells "Charly the Spy" that he liked "that school teacher" a lot more and reminds her to call Caitlin. Caine/Baltimore is now just plain disgusted and walks out of the room.

Her spy skepticism has come back as well as despite wanting to go back to work as an assassin, she doesn't just blindly trust Perkins and then becomes sure that something is not as it used to be after Perkins dispatches goons to kill her. She and Henessey manage to escape and Caine/Baltimore decides to just be Baltimore from now on. She remember that a little key that she always wore as a braclet, and one that she left at home on Caitlin's teddy bear, Mr. Perkins, actually opens a safe-deposit box that has a lot of money in it. This is presumably cached operating funds from Perkins' agency. As Baltimore goes to get the key, she sees her daughter and Hal, along with the rest of the community, in church and the children are performing a Nativity play. Caitlin is dressed as an angel and it is Christmas Eve at this point in the story. Baltimore is moved by what she sees and reconsiders her decision to abandon her family and life in this town, but then hears that Henessey is in trouble. Perkins' agents have tracked them to this town and while she manages to save Henessey from pursuers, they proved to be only a distraction as Timothy swoops in an kidnaps Caitlin back at the church.

Thus, we reach the film's final act, where all that has occured, will now up to some startling conclusions.

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Part II
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