Blind Date Review / Blind Date (1987) Movie

The first major film role of Bruce Willis was that in “Blind Date” (1987), a romantic comedy in which he played against the then-already-heard Kim Basinger. Kim Basinger was already known for “Never Say Never Again” and “9 1/2 Weeks”, while Bruce Willis was only responsible for detective series “Moonlighting”. Could director Blake Edwards have realized what kind of gold he had in choosing the male lead? Not a year later, Bruce Willis established his name with the iconic rendition of John McClane in “Die Hard”, a print that – rightly – appears on almost everyone’s top so many lists of favorite action films.

In “Blind Date” Bruce plays the ambitious Walter Davis, who works really hard to get a promotion. However, he needs a date for a dinner with his boss and an important business partner, but his choice of women is limited. In desperation, he then goes into the proposal of his brother, the car salesman Ted (Phil Hartman). He indicates that Nadia (Kim Basinger), a cousin of his wife, is just new to the city and would like to meet people. She is definitely in for a blind date with Walter. Oh yes, one warning in advance: don’t give her alcohol, because then she will lose all control.

To kill the time before dinner and to get to know each other better, Walter and Nadia visit an exhibition (where they met Nadia’s extremely jealous ex David, a psychopath, according to Nadia) and a music studio (against which Nadia knows better in a glass drink alcohol). The rest of the evening can be predicted: of course, the alcohol causes Nadia to misbehave during the business dinner and Walter loses his job. When Walter then tries to get rid of Nadia, the duo gets stuck from one bizarre situation to another.

“Blind Date” is a comedy of errors. Not a very good one, but certainly not a bad one. Kim Basinger shows that he has excellent comic timing and John Larroquette (the psychopathic ex) has a number of very funny scenes, as well as his fencing father, played by William Daniels. Bruce Willis also knows how to handle this role, in which physical comedy predominates. Although the chemistry between him and Basinger leaves something to be desired and has not been worked out very well why he ultimately cannot forget her, the end of “Blind Date” is still satisfactory. Of course, there are countless illogical choices in the story (why Walter doesn’t bring Nadia to his brother and sister-in-law right after the offending business dinner, for example), but the film is entertaining enough not to be a hot issue.