Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

“Don’t worry. I saw the last Lord Of The Rings and I’m not gonna have this movie end 17 times,” Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang protagonist Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) tells the audience near the film’s conclusion. It's exactly that style of writing—breaking the fourth wall with in-jokes—that makes ever-cool Kiss Kiss the year’s most original movie. Scripted and directed by action guru Shane Black (Lethal Weapon), Warner Bros. executives must have thought he was on crack when he pitched this contemporary Hollywood film noir comedy. Downey plays a small-time thief who suddenly gets “discovered” and sent to Hollywood for a screen test. It's there that the confused crook must prepare with the tough-talking, but light-in-the-loafers, private dick Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), and the two get stuck together against their wills. The shit really hits the fan when the unlikely duo meets hottie Michelle Monaghan—nude scene alert!—and are immediately thrust into a real-life murder case. Sporting dialogue that might have made Bogart blush (“She opens the door and has nothing on but the room”), Black shows a knack for throwaway pulp novel–speak that dazzles with its wacky rhythms. The plot is a bit of a mess and the film misses "classic" status by hitting too many creative dead ends, but you gotta give credit to any movie that describes one scantily-clad babe as “wetter than Drew Barrymore at a grunge club."

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