Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)December 12th, 2005
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
rating: 3.5 out of 4
Director: Shane Black
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan Screenplay: Shane Black (based in part upon the novel by Brett Halliday)
MPAA Classification: R (language, violence, and sexuality/nudity)
Writer/Director Shane Black has certainly fulfilled the pre-requisite requirements for successfully creating a Crime Thriller. He directed Lethal Weapon, after all. But he seems to know the genre a tad too well. With Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Black seems to have emerged on the other side of genre understanding and now looks back upon it with a disdainful eye. His film is a farce of the genre; a dirty little prank upon his previous work. It's neurotic and self-indulgent, ignorant of its own plot (a story not even the narrator approves of), and a complete laugh in the face of what the genre has come to stand for in recent years. But because of this, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (KKBB) strangely works.
We find Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) as he's robbing a toy store to find a Christmas present for his son. This shopping excursion is cut short, however, when Harry's partner is incidentally shot in the getaway. Now alone and running on foot from the cops, Harry scrambles into the first room he can find, which coincidentally is a film audition for the role of a burglar who just caused the death of his partner. Fancy that. Harry gets the role, and finds himself the next day at a ritzy party in Los Angeles. There he meets Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), a homosexual private eye hired to help Harry learn the art of investigation for his upcoming role. Also at the party is Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), a girl who suspiciously looks like Harry's high school crush that got away. Later that night, Harry tags along with Perry to a stakeout that expectedly ends up in murder. I would elaborate farther, but KKBB seems about as interested with its plot as a dog is with a cat. Instead, Shane Black seems indelibly interested in his characters, a welcome change to the Crime Thriller genre of recent years.
Harry introduces himself early on to be the narrator of the movie, saying that he's not all too prominent a host, but do we see any other willing narrators standing around? Thus, we're lead through the plot by a shaky, neurotic hand that jumps about on whims of flashbacks and nearly forgotten subplots. At one point, Harry promises to elaborate on a flashback, then forgets, but later remembers again and jumps back to the subplot. And as annoying as it may read on paper, the narration strangely works. Black knows his story's weaknesses, and smudges them out by allowing indulgence with Harry Lockhart's character. At particularly clichéd points in the picture, Harry stops the film on its reel (similar to how Kuzco would in my Disney favorite The Emperor's New Groove) and explains how much he hates these particular clichés in movies and apologizes at their inclusion in his own film. The irony to this method is that KKBB's plot isn't actually all too bad. It's better, in fact, than most Crime Thrillers of late. But without Harry's narration, the film would probably fall into mediocrity, even despite Black's zany characters.
The most antithetical of these characters is Val Kilmer's Gay Perry. It's almost as if Black imagined the formula-based role of "tough guy", then decided on a character in the polar opposite direction. But he spares us the ignorant, slanderous gay men from more mediocre films; Perry won't give Harry gaudy fashion tips or speak in a lispy, high-strung tone. He's simply homosexual. Black avoids political incorrectness by making the situation funny, not the homosexuality, unwilling to allow his film to sink to low-brow gay jokes. But he's not too proud, however, to work beyond physical humor. At one point, Harmony accidentally chops part of Harry's fingers completely off. It becomes a running joke from there, with Harry departing from his phalanges on several more occasions.
With such an indulgent character as Harry, Black must have toiled for hours over whom to cast for the role. Robert Downey Jr. is the fruit of these labors; and quite a delightfully sour fruit indeed. The performance is pitch perfect, Downey Jr. injecting meticulous amounts of confidence and neurotics into the assuredly unique role. There's also some welcome, and unexpected, chemistry to be found between Downey Jr. and Michelle Monaghan, who plays the voluptuous Harmony. I've become accustomed to complaining about a lack of chemistry between actors, only now to be completely surprised to find sparks in the most unlikely of places. But this is my feeling on the whole about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I walked in expecting little, but came away deliciously surprised. It's a film noir that strives continuously to be also a farce, but finds itself caught somewhere smarmily in between.
-reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
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