I know there’s a lot of John Cusack love in Cafe Society, so allow me to share this trailer I just discovered. I love Grosse Pointe Blank, and this really looks like a prequel with John Cusack (not mentioned by name as Martin Blank, but it’s pretty obviously him) and Joan Cusack (looks like the same character as well). Hillary Duff actually looks pretty sexy here, too. I’m guessing *War Inc. * will be another dark comedy (with added relevance due to the Iraq war and Halliburton’s involvement), from the look of things.
I’m guessing prequel because of references to Martin Blank’s past mercenary work, dealing with some very unsavory and dangerous types in Third World locales. Plus, at the end of GPB, he had lost his taste for violence and seemed ready to give it all up for the girl (and had Joan Cusack’s character burn down their office).
Plot point: when we see Joan pouring gasoline all over the place, she wasn’t burning down their office because he was ready to give it up. She was burning the office because he hadn’t met his call-in time and she assumed he was dead; she was preparing to destroy all evidence that he had been in the area.
The movie looks like it could be pretty funny, if they don’t try to squeeze in too many Zucker-style “stop everything for a two minute intro for a sight gag and a throwaway line” jokes.
I’m guessing “Martin Blank like character” that isn’t Martin Blank. Cusack has aged too much to pull off a prequel (and seems intellegent enough to know it) and it doesn’t seem true to the Martin Blank character to go back to work for the government.
But Martin Blank was a great character for Cusack, and “Martin Blank like” should be another great character.
I’m still going to consider it a prequel, even if the characters’ names are different. It wouldn’t be too bizarre for a mercenary assassin (or whatever Blank is in this movie) to adopt a nom de guerre, and it really looks like it could set up a lot of the events that are referred to in GPB. Also, how is Joan Cusack not playing the same exact character, just based on the little we see?
Also, I have this theory that John Cusack plays the same character at different points in his life in Say Anything and Grosse Point Blank (and possibly High Fidelity too), even though he has different names in all three of those movies (Lloyd Dobler, Martin Blank, Rob Gordon). So I’m sure I can retcon War Inc. (Brand Hauser) into the Cusack Continuum as well.
Hmmm… Lloyd Dobler and the guy from Hi-Fidelity could no way, shape or form be the same character. Martin Blank and the Hi-Fidelity guy- possibly.
I think it is entirely possible that the Martin Blank character could have ended up back in the game. If Minnie Driver’s cahracter had left him or died, what reason would he have to live a normal life?
It looks like an unofficial sequel to me. The H2 and LeBron James reference set it in the present, but the names are different. They probably had some problems getting the rights to a sequel, so they just made something in the same vein. It also gets to avoid the plot points where he returns to his hitman life and abandons Minnie Driver.