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Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005 - Shane Black)
In 1987 and 1988, with the huge successes of Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, a new breed of action movie was born. One of the men responsible for that was Shane Black, the screenwriter of the original Lethal Weapon. I'm not saying this new Hollywood fascination with the action movie was such a great thing, as goodness knows most of the many dozens flicks that followed became less and less interesting and inspired, and eventually the genre played itself out, more or less. Shane Black had a hand in that too, as the screenwriter of The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Last Action Hero. In those latter scripts, Black tried to playfully deconstruct this new brand of movie he had helped birth, but while they work here and there and a few of the ideas are clever, ultimately they all failed (to various degrees), and instead of a wry comment on the genre they simply became more noise at the tail end of the boom.
Some eighteen years after Lethal Weapon, Shane decided to take one more crack at that deconstruction...and this time he succeeds. Big time. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a funny and smart valentine to those movies that amuses even when it is pissing on their corpse (including the very funny scene where somebody literally pisses on a corpse).
Not only that, but it gives two showcase roles to a couple actors who's careers need them. Robert Downey Jr. is frippin' hysterical as the small-time thief mistaken for an actor mistaken for a private detective who comes to Los Angeles and almost immediately finds himself at the center of an amped-up Chandleresque mystery. Whatever his self-destructive real-life woes, Downey has always delighted me on the screen, and this his his best role and his best work since Wonder Boys (2000)...and this time he's most definitely the star and in nearly every scene. Val Kilmer, who has been doing some decent work this century but also trolling in some real garbage, is almost as wonderful playing an openly homosexual private eye who earns extra money as the technical advisor on movie projects.
The plotting has nods to Chandler and pulps like Jim Thompson, if the milieu is by way of Tony Scott, and it's nothing but fun every step of the way. Each day is a chapter in our story, and each chapter has the same title as a Raymond Chandler novel ("Trouble is My Business", "The Lady in the Lake", "The Little Sister", "Farewell, My Lovely"). But this is a bit of self conscious fun where the plot truly don't matter all that much, an exercise in cinematic style where you know it's a movie that knows it's a movie and enjoy every frame of it anyway. While this self parody and deconstruction didn't work in The Last Action Hero, it is a positive hoot in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. It's a tricky line to walk, between clever and annoying or between ingenous and tedious, but Black and co. run right down that line, guns blazing, wisecracks galore, bodies in tow, and somehow manage to stay on the correct side of that line scene after scene.
So damn much fun. And for all you fine folks in the midwest, forgive all the foul language and just enjoy the ride.
GRADE: B+
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005 - Shane Black)
In 1987 and 1988, with the huge successes of Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, a new breed of action movie was born. One of the men responsible for that was Shane Black, the screenwriter of the original Lethal Weapon. I'm not saying this new Hollywood fascination with the action movie was such a great thing, as goodness knows most of the many dozens flicks that followed became less and less interesting and inspired, and eventually the genre played itself out, more or less. Shane Black had a hand in that too, as the screenwriter of The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Last Action Hero. In those latter scripts, Black tried to playfully deconstruct this new brand of movie he had helped birth, but while they work here and there and a few of the ideas are clever, ultimately they all failed (to various degrees), and instead of a wry comment on the genre they simply became more noise at the tail end of the boom.
Some eighteen years after Lethal Weapon, Shane decided to take one more crack at that deconstruction...and this time he succeeds. Big time. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a funny and smart valentine to those movies that amuses even when it is pissing on their corpse (including the very funny scene where somebody literally pisses on a corpse).
Not only that, but it gives two showcase roles to a couple actors who's careers need them. Robert Downey Jr. is frippin' hysterical as the small-time thief mistaken for an actor mistaken for a private detective who comes to Los Angeles and almost immediately finds himself at the center of an amped-up Chandleresque mystery. Whatever his self-destructive real-life woes, Downey has always delighted me on the screen, and this his his best role and his best work since Wonder Boys (2000)...and this time he's most definitely the star and in nearly every scene. Val Kilmer, who has been doing some decent work this century but also trolling in some real garbage, is almost as wonderful playing an openly homosexual private eye who earns extra money as the technical advisor on movie projects.
The plotting has nods to Chandler and pulps like Jim Thompson, if the milieu is by way of Tony Scott, and it's nothing but fun every step of the way. Each day is a chapter in our story, and each chapter has the same title as a Raymond Chandler novel ("Trouble is My Business", "The Lady in the Lake", "The Little Sister", "Farewell, My Lovely"). But this is a bit of self conscious fun where the plot truly don't matter all that much, an exercise in cinematic style where you know it's a movie that knows it's a movie and enjoy every frame of it anyway. While this self parody and deconstruction didn't work in The Last Action Hero, it is a positive hoot in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. It's a tricky line to walk, between clever and annoying or between ingenous and tedious, but Black and co. run right down that line, guns blazing, wisecracks galore, bodies in tow, and somehow manage to stay on the correct side of that line scene after scene.
So damn much fun. And for all you fine folks in the midwest, forgive all the foul language and just enjoy the ride.
GRADE: B+