I agree, it's a great movie. One of my guilty pleasures that I watch all the time.

The reason is that there's a lot of misogyny on the part of young males who've been more and more the target audience for filmmakers in the past twenty years. For example, look at the ire online against the all female remake of Ghostbusters. I just read an astounding article about that in The Atlantic.
Young men don't want women as the leads in their movies. Especially action or suspense films. It's the reason the entertaining Cutthroat Island didn't amass an audience a year before this one and that this one didn't do any better. Female lead.
Another example: In 1995 a film came out called Seven. Huge box-office hit. A month later an equally entertaining and similarly themed film came out called Copycat. It was largely ignored by audiences. Why? Female leads. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman weren't the leads in it, but rather Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter. Where Seven made $100 million, Copycat made $32 million.
The mostly young male audiences are very misogynistic. They're afraid of strong women leads. It's why their favorite films are The Godfather's and Martin Scorcese films. Look at how the women are treated in all those films.
Think I'm wrong? Have you seen a lot of the misogyny involved in the Hillary Clinton bashing online?
Here's that Atlantic article if you need more proof:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/the-sexist-outcry-against-the-ghostbusters-remake-gets-louder/483270/#article
And be warned: these misogynists will come up with all sorts of refutations against this idea. It will be about anything else than that. Anything.

There's no box office draw here.
Geena Davis and Rene Harlin were poison at this point because of all the negative publicity, failure and diva like attitude from Cutthroat Island.
Sam Jackson wasn't a box office draw as the romantic lead. He's always been more of a male sidekick or in his later years old wise leader type. He's never really been able to draw on his own without an A list draw like Bruce Willis or Travolta, and is better as part of an ensemble cast usually.

Hahahahaha. No one cares.

It bombed because it's absolute garbage, like most of Renny Harlin's attempts at movies.

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Unfortunately the Action Girl phenomenon hadn't really taken off in the mainstream just yet. Buffy hadn't started yet (though the movie had come out) and Xena was more of a cult thing. The public just wasn't used to an action movie with a female lead. And Geena Davis was known mainly for romcoms and dramas. So fans of her might have been put off by a genre so different to what she's known for, and action movie fans would have been put off by her being the lead. Likewise at that time Samuel L Jackson wasn't as notable a star as he is today. While he was recognisable, he was going through a hype backlash period after Pulp Fiction. He wouldn't rebound until Die Hard With A Vengeance.

good points. I think the main problem was gina davis was not that big of a star. if this had been done with Sandra bullock in the lead a year or 2 after speed (or j-law now), it would've been a huge hit, I think. Gina did a fantastic job, she just was not big enough to launch the film (which seems more important than how good the film is, sadly).

• Great action sequences
• Intense plot
• A funny/fun script by Shane Black
• Samuel L. Jackson
• Geena Davis
  Like Demolition Man, this is one that doesn't quite get the attention it deserves. As far as action movies go, it's better than most. In fact I'd take this one over 90% of the action movies released in 2012. This one has actual characters and humor, something you can't find in Battleship or John Carter or the dismal remake of Total Recall.
  As to why it bombed as badly as it did, I think there are a few possible reasons. The confusing title may have had something to do with it. It's also possible that after Twister, The Rock, Earser and Independence Day, not to mention the latest Van Damme and Seagal mediocrities, audiences were action movied out by the time. There's also this possiblity, which I think is the most likely reason.
  I've observed previously that the aforementioned Demolition Man got overlooked on account of being released just as the tropes of 80s action movies were starting to fade. By 1996, those tropes, which Shane Black had helped invent, were pretty much a thing of the past. Most of the action films Black wrote were focused primarily on the characters and The Long Kiss Goodnight is no exception. But in 1996 the Bruckheimerization of action movies was in full effect and the tropes of those are bigger, louder and faster. The Long Kiss Goodnight seemed out of date to much of the multiplex crowd in 1996.
  Luckily, it has found its audience. To me it holds up way better than the more commercially successful and remembered likes of Top Gun and Armageddon.

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That's itthe title. I managed a movie theatre when this movie was released and I had to actually convince people to go see it. I remember two GI's came in to see a movie and wanted a recommendation. I told them to see this movie and at first, they bristled and asked, "is it a love story or something?" I explained that it was an amazing action movie, they decided to go see it. I made sure I was there when they came out and asked them what they thought. They RAVED about it and said that it was the best movie they'd seen in a long time.
Even with the movie one sheet, the title cost it box office, I think, just like what happened with
The Shawshank Redemption
two years earlier. A bad title can sink you.
Sister, when I've raised hell, you'll know it!

Well, the title doesn't help. I almost didn't check it out because a Long Kiss Goodnight sound like some chick flick when you don't have a movie poster or something to go by.

An action movie starring a woman over 40 in the lead role[quote/]
Geena Davis was born in 1956, so she wouldn't have been
OVER
forty when this movie was made. She'd have been either thirty-nine at the time, or just
TURNED
forty. Either way, even today at age fifty-five, I still find her quite attractive and pretty, and even sexy!
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Once again, Raisins displays her sick obsession with age.

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Well I just recently watched it and now I wished I had watched it earlier since it came out as I thought it was one of the BEST action movies I'd seen. It had everything I enjoy about action movies sprinkling in some humor.
But maybe one turn off for me was the damn title. Whenever I heard of the title from years past it just doesn't sound like an action movie to me. It sounds like a romance novel made into a movie, or some little chick flick thriller so maybe that's why I put it off from watching it for so long.

No history lesson needed. "REGULARLY thought of" does not mean "NEVER thought of".

"I mean, a "FEMALE action star"! WOW! 14 years ago it wasn't a concept regularly thought of as a box office draw."
you guys need to do better with your film history..
sigourney weaver broke through as a female action star in 'Aliens' and was even nominated for an oscar she kicked so much butt..
if anything, weaver set the way for other female heroines in film..

Actually, it wasn't well received because in a way it was ahead of its time. I mean, a "FEMALE action star"! WOW! 14 years ago it wasn't a concept regularly thought of as a box office draw.
The female lead was supposed to be the "damsel in distress". Even "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was joked about (Heaven forbid, a WOMAN is the one who fights violently and saves the day.) It was something that simply wasn't well received. And even if she was the cliched "gun-toting, @$$ kicking, backflipping, sex kitten" she was relegated to the role of the sidekick, never the STAR.
So TLKG could be considered the precursor to action movies with strong women as the lead. Tomb Raider, Mr & Mrs Smith, Kill Bill, et al. If this were made today, more than likely, Angelina Jolie would be the star (Salt, anyone).

I totally agree. this is one of my favorites. davis and harlin at the time had bad raps. shane black is one of my favorite writers. the script is almost foreboding of future events.
"it was the first nativity where joseph stares at the wisemen's tits all night"

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I liked it, it was better than average as an action movie. But nothing outstanding.
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