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Review

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

  • Directed by Shane Black
  • Starring Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan and Larry Miller

Written and directed by Shane Black, the man who wrote some of the most popular buddy cop action films of the late 80’s, like Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout, this film marks his directorial debut.

Harry Lockhart (Downey) is a smalltime crook whose bumbling criminal activities accidentally got his partner shot in New York. Stumbling away from the scene of the crime, he seeks refuge in a nearby building, which just so happens to be where Dabney Shaw (Miller) is doing screen tests. Harry’s overwrought emotional state allows him to nail the audition on adrenalin alone, and he soon finds himself attending swanky Hollywood parties and not quite fitting in with the locals.

Harry is being given Ëœdetective lessons’ by ËœGay’ Perry, a local detective who has incorporated and does consulting work for film in addition to handling his normal boring caseload. Also in attendance at the party is a Harmony, who passes out/falls asleep in a quiet room and is almost molested by a stranger until Harry comes to her rescue, with amusing results. Harmony ends up leaving with the stranger anyway, much to Harry’s annoyance, but Perry is kind enough to give him the name of a bar she’s known to frequent.

Harry runs into her there, and after some verbal sparring with both she and her overprotective girlfriend she reveals that she Ëœthat’ Harmony, the girl from his childhood that got away. He wins her over at the bar, but drunkenly manages to sleep with her friend back at his hotel.

Rejected (with good reason, mind you) the next morning, Harry continues his Ëœtraining’ with Perry, staking out a remote cabin in the hills. Following the subject, they lose the car briefly until it launches into a lake, and Perry pulls the body of a girl from the trunk, but manages to put a hole in her head shooting open the trunk. They see two masked guys fleeing the scene, and between to hole in the head, Harry’s priors in New York, they choose to leave things as they are and flee the scene themselves. Perry feels like he’s been set up to witness a murder and has no idea why, Harry’s just freaked out by the whole situation.

Harry gets a call as Perry is dropping him at his hotel, questioning him about Harmony, and if he gave her his number recently, because she’s apparently committed suicide.

Imagine Harry’s surprise when Harmony shows up sobbing at his hotel a short time later, the suicide was actually her sister who had stolen her credit card and run up some add charges before killing herself. Harry, in his generally dishonest nature, has told Harmony that he’s a private detective, so she enlists his help in finding out why her sister was in LA and why she killed herself.

Then the lady from the lake turns up in Harry’s shower to frame him for the murder and he and Perry desperately try to figure out who is behind the killings and what connections it has to the people at the party they attended the night before and to Harmony’s dead sister.

The film is loaded with black humor, including but not limited to: peeing on corpses, severed fingers and all the silly trendy shit you imagine goes on at lavish Hollywood parties. Harry serves as our world weary narrator throughout, starting and stopping the film at his whim to add detail when it’s been skipped over, commenting on things through his very cynical view of life and helping to flesh out characters who we may only see briefly but need to know more about.

I loved the film, the dialog is snappy and the situations unexpected, throwing the conventional noir tropes on their ear while keeping with the flavor of a Raymond Chandler mystery. The film isn’t as action oriented as some of Black’s other work, but it’s nice to see him dial that down in favor of more character interaction, and what little violence we see is often surprising or funny when it does crop up.

Highly recommended, though I’m docking it a half point for the overly convoluted plot, this is a film I could re-watch numerous times.

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About The Author

Kingmob

Kingmob has been spending his time writing online reviews for the better part of two years and has nothing but the ability to speak about himself in the 3rd person to show for it. This review and others like it can be found at Big Suck Loser and you can read about the daily minutiae that drives him slowly mad and informs his useless opinions of pop culture at his blog, Dear Bastards.

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Article Information

  • Posted: Monday, February 9th, 2009
  • Author: Kingmob
  • Filed Under: Film, Review
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments

6 Responses to “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”
  1. Romain Ballet Romain says:

    Totaly agree with you kingmob, the movie stays funny even after multiple viewings.

    February 9, 2009 at 6:48 am
  2. Bruce Moyle Bruce Moyle says:

    I love this film. One of my all time favs the more I think about it. The dialogue is brilliant and while I love Downey’s performace, Val is even better in my opinion.

    February 9, 2009 at 9:44 am
  3. Bill Kingmob says:

    Kilmer is pretty damned funny, his delivery just kills me.

    Also, I apologize for the numerous typos I noticed when reading through the review just now, it’s sad that between Word and my own anal retentive nature I still miss things.

    February 9, 2009 at 10:34 am
  4. Wendy Comeau Wendy Comeau says:

    Rats! When I saw this flicker by on Twitter, I thought I would be downloading a podcast review. Still, I’m happy to see it given some attention as I think it was overlooked when it came out. Love it.

    February 11, 2009 at 1:07 am
  5. Donald Carrick The Warhead Chicken says:

    Love this movie, never fails to make me laugh and I’ve seen it plenty of times.

    February 14, 2009 at 6:17 am

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