76 - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang review

The title of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang comes from Pauline Kael’s declaration that those four words are the briefest description of the appeal of the movies as possible. Taking that into account you might imagine Shane Black’s directorial debut to be a Hollywood satire, but instead it serves as a sly joke to the enlightened audience member, one of many breaches of the fourth wall.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a gruesome, often hilarious action flick, the kind Black used to specialize in writing but now has moved on to directing. While none of his prior films were particularly serious at any time, but here Black cuts loose more with side-splitting dialogue and references to the mechanics of film than he does gun fights and girls, though it has those, too.

Robert Downey Jr. stars as Harry Lockhart, a petty thief that amusingly stumbles into Hollywood in a manner that Black might feel resembles his own rise, at least in spirit. Harry teams up with Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), a tough and matter-of-factly gay detective, to study detective work for a role.

Harry and Perry stumble upon a dead body that ends up involving Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), Harry’s high school dream girl, and the funniest corpse joke I’ve ever seen. When Harmony has a supposedly unrelated death on her hands, Harry eagerly pretends to be a real detective in order to cozy up to the one that got away. From there, the story takes on the form of a twisted mystery-noir.

Without a top-notch performance in each role, the film likely couldn’t succeed. Noirs rely not on their ridiculous plots, but on the characters trapped inside of them. Robert Downey Jr. was the right choice for Harry, a man so used to things going wrong that the loss of a finger doesn’t so much upset him as it does inconvenience him. Where many actors would be tempted to ham up Gay Perry, Kilmer plays it mostly straight, pun not intended, providing a much needed noir know-how. Monaghan has the sort of cute to her that nearly becomes overwhelming, but doesn’t leave us wondering why Harry would go through so much for her.

Watch as Harmony mistakenly thinks Harry was groping her and writes it off as no big deal; like all noir heroes, Harry’s sensibilities are deeply chivalric, whether or not he realizes it. To him, a woman’s appeal increases along with the revelation of her screwy demons, something that strangely affects more men than most would think. It’s the one part of the story that may not be tongue in cheek, but also one of the highlights.

Harry’s almost playful narration leads us through the seriously convoluted plot. He often stops the frame mid-cycle in order to mock film convention, which while not reaching the post-modern brilliance of Adaptation, provides some seriously funny moments. During one scene, a previously dead hero enters the room in a wheelchair, followed by every other character killed thus far, as Harry bemoans the tendency of important but dead characters to walk back into frame at the screenplay’s convenience. Black knows what cliches are necessary to put a film like this together, and instead of playing dumb, he wisely embraces and acknowledges them.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’s detractors have said that the film is self-congratulatory, always too happy with itself. They may have a point, but I disagree; Black displays a winning combination of confidence and smarts, blended together to make a deliriously entertaining movie. Black knew he wasn’t making high art, but he did make a damn good movie, which is the only thing that really matters. Everything comes with a wink and a smile, like the guy at the party who reminds the guests to stop taking things too seriously, because it’s all about having fun. In this case, he’d be right.

4 out of 5