Just so you aren’t confused, this is not the John Cusack movie Gross Point Blank.  Gross Point is actually a movie I am a rather big fan of and you should check it out if you get the chance, but it’s not quite Top 100 material.  Point Blank came out 31 years earlier in 1967 and stars one the all time bad asses, Lee Marvin.  To give you an idea of the type of movie this is, the tag line was…

 

“There are two kinds of people in his up-tight world: his victims and his women. And sometimes you can’t tell them apart.”

 

At first glance the plot is pretty simple.  Walker (Lee Marvin), a thief in San Francisco was double-crossed by his partner Reese during a heist on Alcatraz.  He was beaten, shot and left for dead.  Reese runs off with Walker’s $93,000 from the job and his young wife Lynn.  Walker wakes up a shell of what he was emotionally with two things on his mind, revenge and $93,000.  And so goes his search for Reese and the money.  The search leads Walker to Los Angeles where he gets tangled up in the secret crime syndicate that Reese works for known as “The Organization”.  Walker kills his way up the latter of The Organization looking for his money and along the way hooks up with Lynn’s sister Chris played by Angie Dickenson.  Chris helps Walker on his quest for money and revenge that eventually will end up back at Alcatraz.

 

Sounds easy enough, right?  The film is a little more complex than that.  It was shot much differently than other films of the time.  It’s highly stylized with rich colors, fast cross-cuts and flashbacks.  It’s almost dreamlike at times.  I have read some critics and analysts that think it actually is a dream that Walker is having as he lays unconscious and dying.  The film at times is brutally violent but always very cool with moments of dark humor.  Lee Marvin is in top form here as the emotionless Walker and the rest of the cast supports him quite well.  Point Blank spawned some of the great crime dramas of today like Reservoir Dogs, The Limey and Snatch.  If you liked those, you will definitely want to watch this.

 By the way, don’t bother with the 1999 remake titled Payback with Mel Gibson.  It is one of the all time bad movie.  Gibson is the worst.