Grosse Pointe Blank

It's not always a seemly combination, but the film has some fine moments.

"Gross Pointe Blank" offers John Cusack one of his best screen roles — which figures, since he co-wrote the screenplay and co-produced the film.

Cusack plays a professional killer who tries to go home again, and while the results are frequently hysterical, the film is decidedly uneven.

The offbeat comic tone is set in the first scene as Cusack is seen casually talking on a cell phone in an upper-floor apartment as he prepares to take out a motorcyclist with a high-powered rifle. Though Cusack fulfills his contract, the moment is disrupted when another hit man (Dan Aykroyd) appears and offs Cusack's clients.

OK, humor crossed with violent death, along with charming, funny actors who play ruthless killers. At first blush, this seems like Quentin Tarantino territory, or perhaps the Coen brothers. And on that scale, "Grosse Pointe Blank" is more like "Fargo" than "Pulp Fiction."

But "Grosse" actually possesses its own quirky sensibility — a surprisingly light and jaunty effort, loaded with goofball cross-talk and amusing characters (from Alan Arkin as a hysterically timid psychiatrist to John Cusack's sister, Joan, as his stalwart, slightly wacky secretary).

The plot kicks in when Cusack, who has been resisting his upcoming 10-year high school reunion, gets an assignment that takes him home a day or two before. He looks up his mother (Barbara Harris) in a rest home, links up with his former best friend (Jeremy Piven) and eventually summons up the nerve to scope out his old girlfriend (Minnie Driver), whom he stood up on prom night.

The thrust of the story is Cusack's desire to rekindle his romance with Driver, knowing full well that what he does for a living is bound to get in the way. And it doesn't help that Aykroyd, along with a couple of feds (Hank Azaria and K. Todd Freeman), has tracked Cusack down and is causing trouble. (Aykroyd wants the reluctant Cusack to join his assassins union.)

The film has an improvisational feel, and one wonders if some of the best jokes were in the original script or if the gifted cast came up with them during rehearsals.

But it is also a bit problematic that the hipper-than-thou attitude the film asserts occasionally comes off as smug.

Though there is plenty that is witty, the moral quandary proposed by the movie is never adequately resolved. The ending feels rushed, and a couple of characters we come to know die a bit too quickly.

And with so many Tarantino-influenced movies coming down the pike these days, audiences may be a bit fed up with being asked to sympathize with ruthless killers. (In what may be a swipe at Tarantino, a "Pulp Fiction" video standee is blown to smithereens during a convenience store shootout.)

And for all the film's smart writing, there is a twist toward the end that is obvious and illogical (and given away in the theatrical preview).

Still, there are big laughs, quiet laughs and some genuinely charming moments.

In between scenes of mayhem, of course.

"Grosse Pointe Blank" is rated R for violence and profanity, and there is some sex and drug abuse (marijuana smoking).