The Way of the Gun is a fast paced, shoot'em up, winding plot, Tarantino style film. The film contains many interveawing plots, unexpected reversals and surprise endings casting doubt on to everyone's innocence. It also marks the directorial debut of Christopher McQuarrie (he got an Oscar for the screenplay of The Usual Suspects). The story involves Benicio Del Toro (who this year picked up a best Supporting Actor Oscar for Traffic) and Ryan Phillippe as Mr. Longbaugh and Mr. Parker respectively. They play a couple of guys who have tired of trying to live a normal life and getting nowhere, so they decide to take a different direction and go looking for the fortune they know was waiting for them. At a sperm bank they overhear that a millionaire's child is being carried by a surrogate mother. Their idea is obvious: kidnap the mother and collect ransom. What follows is a web of twisted loyalties involving the millionaire, bodyguards, enforcers and a gynecologist. The pregnant woman, played by Juliette Lewis, is the calming center of the piece and seems to understand the whole situation, and proceeds to explain it to the other characters as they need to know. This is an enjoyable film if you like lots of cat-and-mouse games, car chases and shootouts.

So what are you doing for a living?
Professional killer.
Good money, I hear.
Pretty good. The film, that is. Martin Q. Blank (Cusack), an ex-C.I.A. operative turned freelance hit-man, has a job in his home town, the Detroit suburb of Grosse Point, right when his ten-year high-school reunion is scheduled. He shows up at the radio station where the childhood sweetheart, Debi (Driver), Martin hasn't seen since the prom night on which he disappeared to join the army, works as a D.J., and gets his comeuppance. But he convinces her to accompany him to the reunion.
His conscience has been bothering him, though. Used to claiming that everyone he kills deserves it, he begins to wonder about that when fellow hit man Grocer (Dan Ackroyd) begins trying to kill him. Martin's understandably neurotic psychiatrist, Alan ("Don't kill anyone!") Arkin, is probably contributing. And then there's the dead dog.
Grosse Point Blank has its weak moments: dead ends (so to speak) and a murder whose gruesomeness doesn't quite fit the comedy genre. But its deadpan humour and well-choreographed action sequences complement pregnant dialogue to leave you with the feeling that, surprisingly, something went right.