Daily Staff Writer

The Long Kiss Goodnight requires a bit of explanation.

Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) is a nice, completely normal schoolteacher in rural New Jersey.

She’s a single mom and is dating a thoroughly sweet man. She is so beloved in the community, she even plays Mrs. Claus is a Christmas parade and shows up on the local TV news.

But she suffers from amnesia. She can’t remember anything that happened before 1988. She can’t even remember who fathered her daughter. And she has scars across her body, scars that look like knife and bullet wounds.

She has a low-rent private eye, Mitch Henessey (Samuel L. Jackson), searching for clues to her past, but he has come up empty.

A violent car accident brings her past creeping back. She dreams of being someone else.

While cutting some vegetables in the kitchen, she discovers that she can really handle a knife. And her personality occasionally shifts from sugary to downright dark when she’s under stress.

About the same time, Hennesey gets a break in his investigation. Good thing, because following her TV appearance, an old associate of Samantha’s shows up toting a huge shotgun, looking to do her in.

Samantha used to be Charly Baltimore, a CIA assassin who makes James Bond look like a wimp. And the past she doesn’t even understand is catching up to her.

The Long Kiss Goodnight does a great job of setting up its outlandish scenario.

The first half of the film is serious fun, as Samantha slowly returns to her former identity and the CIA tries to cover its tracks.

But the film’s major problem is that it moves too quickly. It feels as though director Renny Harlin (Davis’ husband) and screenwriter Shane Black crammed three hours’ worth of plot into two hours of screen time.

There are enough holes to make the audience think that one of the film’s characters shot up the plot with a submachine gun, including a plot point involving phone bills guaranteed to lose half the audience.

But the film is not all bad, ( it shouldn’t be for its $4 million price tag) and should provide solid entertainment for action-movie fanatics.

The chemistry between Davis and Jackson is excellent. Their interplay while on the run provides the film’s best moments. Jackson’s work proves once again that he is one of the best actors working today.

Black’s script is loaded with snappy dialogue; he apparently paid more attention to one-liners than he did to the plot. And Harlin does have a knack for inventive visuals and action sequences (see Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger ).

The Long Kiss Goodnight on the same entertainment level as True Lies or a Bond flick. Viewers who check their brains at the door will probably enjoy it. Otherwise, wait for the video.

The Long Kiss Goodnight is rated R for loads of extreme violence, brief nudity and much strong language.