A hip, flip, deadpan comedy which washed through the Tarantino floodgate. The hero is a professional hitman in career crisis ("I don't think necessarily what a person does for a living reflects who he is") and in therapy with a psychoanalyst who is terrified of him. A new assignment -- a makeup assignment for a bullet-riddled corpse who was supposed to look like a coronary victim -- happens to coincide in time and place with his ten-year high-school reunion. The notion of character -- an established character, a coherent character -- never inconveniences the moviemakers, never intervenes in their pursuit of a joke, never intrudes into their direct communication with like-minded viewers. The main joke is not, of course, the ostensible one of a hitman's discovery and exploration of conscience: that would demand some characterization. The main joke is instead the tacit agreement between fellow hipsters behind and in front of the screen, that conscience is a territory no more tangible or real than Cloudcuckooland. With John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd, Jeremy Piven, Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, and Joan Cusack; directed by George Armitage. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd