[.ca] Kiss Kiss Bang Bang [Blu-ray]

One of the Best Movies Ever!:
This is probably the biggest overlooked gem of 2005. It is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. It is quite complicated -- the first time I saw it, I really didn't understand what was happening -- but on a second viewing, the plot will probably make sense. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang stars Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. They have incredible chemistry, and are absolutely hysterical. The film's humour is absolutely crazy, and all over the place -- some of it is light gay humour, some slapstick, some romantic (Downey Jr.'s character isn't very suave, to put it lightly). I would definitely recommend this movie to ANYONE (as long as you don't mind women's nipples. Or people's fingers being cut off (by a door being slammed on it)). Anyone who enjoys humour, mystery, or any of the actors in this movie will LOVE it, guaranteed. The only reason Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang was not an enormous success was because of a lack of marketing. But with the DVD release, this can change! You should definitely check out this movie! It is superb!

Underrated Film:
I found this film to be one of the funniest films I've seen in a while. I heard a lot of negativity in the press about it, but when I finally got to see it I was pleasantly suprised how involved with the story I got, how much I enjoyed watching the characters interact with each other and just how funny it is from start to finish. I love movies that make fun of the genre that they're in and try to be a little different. Shane Black is a great writer and this helps further prove that.

An entertaining mix of pretty women, guns, corpses, quick hands, and a missing finger:
"Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" was originally the name of a 1966 Italian movie, "Bacia e spara," the noted film critic Pauline Kael used for her second collection of film reviews in the 1960s. Kael had seen a poster for the movie in Italy and considered it to be a reduction of the basic appeal of the movies to its simplest terms, sex and violence, a reality of which she despaired. Director Shane Black, working in part from Brett Halliday's novel, "Bodies Are Where You Find Them," tries to provide a bit more than sex and violence in this 2005 film, but more importantly he has fun with the sex and violence. Black wrote most of the "Lethal Weapons" pictures as well as "The Last Action Hero," although my personal favorite (and the only one I have on the shelf) was "The Long Kiss Goodnight" (Hey, "chefs do that"). His central character and narrator is Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey, Jr.), who we meet at a Hollywood party. This necessitates explaining how he ended up at the party where he met a girl, Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), which then requires Harry to backtrack and explain how she ended up at the party, as well as the story about the robot. Harry is not exactly up to speed on what is required of a decent narrator, but you should be paying attention to what he shows you if not to what he says, because things will matter down the road. Off the cuff references to the properties of Silly Putty turn out to be foreshadowing, and if Black does that with minor points you can expect the larger ones to pop up that way as well. In addition to the girl, Harry meets up with (saw it slow and elongate the last syllable) Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), a private eye who is supposed to provide Harry with private eye lessons on the off chance he ends up playing on in a movie, which gets us back to why Harry is in Hollywood, not to mention the party. Then Harry stumbles upon what will be the first of several dead bodies and the next thing we know Harry is pretending to be a detective in order to impress the girl. There is more bang bang than kiss kiss in this film, and some of the kiss kiss is not exactly in the traditional Hollywood mold. I really do not want to get into details because you are better off if you just experience the film instead of me trying to explain it. All things considered, I liked the bits and pieces of this movie more than the summation of the parts. I especially liked the bit where Harry tries to persuade someone to persuade to a bluff only to find the math did not work out in his favor, and the piece where Harry finally gets to toss aside his gun with one of the more understated big lines of recent memory. There is a bit more of black comedy here than of film noir, even if Harmony is fascinated by the pulp detective yarns of her youth, but that is fine with me. For all of his ups and downs Downey usually makes movies only during the ups, which is why he is almost always worth watching. He also shows a nice sense of restraint as an actor in the face of the over the top action that Black concocts for him again and again. Kilmer lays things on a bit thick, but he is clearly trying to have fun (even on the commentary track with Downey and Black), and Monaghan certainly manages to keep pace with her male co-stars.

Overblown, Self-Important Piece:
This movie does some out of the ordinary things that try to be "hip". Problem is the story itself is conveluted and poorly written and directed. I give it two stars for the part where Downy thinks putting one bullet in a six shooter gives an 8% chance of shooting someone and while he's trying to figure out the math after shooting the guy Kilmer yells at hime to "stop multiplying", that was pretty funny. Could have been very good with a better story and overall direction.

A dark comedy that just isn't all that funny:
Don't you hate it when a movie character also serves as the narrator, continually interrupting the film to tell us what he forgot to tell us a minute ago or to throw in general smart remarks? Of course you do. We all do. So why do directors keep doing it? I assume there is supposed to be some level of spoof-iness to this film, though, so I'll just leave it at that. I generally enjoy dark comedies, but I just didn't find Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang to be at all funny. There are plenty of comical situations, but actual moments of comedy are few and far between. Maybe it's just because I don't like Robert Downey, Jr. (who, along with all of his well-documented problems, basically ruined Alley McBeal single-handedly). Then again, maybe I shouldn't complain -- after all, I only watched this movie because Michelle Monaghan looked all kinds of hot in that little Christmas outfit of hers. The problem is that the film tries to be even cuter than Monaghan -- and it's not even close. So what do we have here? I won't go too deeply into the plot because it's designed to be full of twists and turns. Robert Downey, Jr., plays Harry Lockhart, a common thief who accidentally auditions for a movie as he is trying to evade the cops. Next thing you know, ole Harry's in L.A. preparing for his acting debut. While attending a party, he makes a human punching bag of himself for a girl (thereby ensuring he can never return to New York, since they don't let you back in if you get beaten up by Richie Rich); apparently a glutton for embarrassment, he then pursues that same girl, Harmony (Monaghan), later on that night, never even realizing -- until she tells him -- that she is the girl he was in love with back in high school. Let's just pause here for a second. Who in the world would not be able to recognize the girl whose beauty haunted him day and night during his formative years? It's not like seventy years have passed since he's seen her. Don't even get me started on what he does next. But I digress. Actually, this is where it all starts to get tricky. Harry starts tagging along with the aptly named private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) in preparation for the detective role he's supposed to play, and he quickly finds a lot of things happening in real life that aren't supposed to happen in real life -- such as corpses turning up at the rate of one per hour. The whole thing turns into this huge mess involving Harmony, Gay, several mystery guests, and just about everyone Harry's ever met in L.A. With pieces falling into place at odd moments, and plenty of dead ends along the way, expect more twists and turns (and bumps) than you'll find on an old, washed-out mountain road. To me, the movie just doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Well, I guess it wants to be a dark comedy, but most of the comedy falls flat, in my opinion. Screwball comedy needs more than just screwballs. I blame the script because the acting really isn't that bad. The whole thing's just too cute and obvious for its own good, especially the increasingly irksome narration bits.