| Product: |
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (DVD) |
| Date: |
06/03/06 (151 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: So much... style, script, acting.
Disadvantages: May be a bit too stylish for some.. I'm reaching here!
Shane Black, creator of Lethal Weapon and Last Boy Scout, has been very quiet of late. In fact I cannot recall the last film he wrote. That could be because he has been working on this throwback to the glory days of action packed buddy movies, or it could be that the kind of movie he writes is perceived, by the studios, to be a dead horse in the 21st century.
As if to prove he is right and the studios wrong Black not only wrote the script and screenplay (based loosely on a book by Brett Halliday) but he also directs for the first time. He casts as the two leads two excellent actors who seem to have lost their footing and slipped down from the A list (perhaps even from the B list as well). Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. After those two the rest of the cast are even lesser known, only Corbin Bernsen, Larry Miller and Shannyn Sossamon (Rules of Attraction) registering any impact with me. Question is can he re-ignite his glory days where he was earning over $1 million a script?
Well as far as I am concerned the answer is yes! Kiss Kiss Bang Bang brings the Lethal Weapon style buddy movie slap bang into the new century. With a wry, sardonic narration by Downey that not only follows cinematic traditions but continually apologises for doing so! I dislike the term post modern but it really does fit KKBB so well.
KKBB is a modern ‘film noir’ without the darkness, a 30’s PI movie without the world weary PI (Private Investigator) and is the most enjoyable action film I have seen in ages. Though to call it an action film is a misnomer, it does have a lot of action but it is a lot more than just that.
KKBB is the story of Harry (Downey), a useless burglar who, while trying to escape the police after a failed robbery, crashes into a casting session for a film. The lines he has to say relate to his current situation and so he manages real emotion and conviction behind them, astonishing the casting people and consequently being given the part. He is relocated from New York to LA and handed over to ‘gay’ Perry (Kilmer), a LA PI who has been employed to show him how a PI acts and to give him ‘lessons’ in being a detective.
The very first lesson he gets is to go on a stakeout with Perry, it all goes wrong though when the stakeout leads to them witnessing a murder and they find themselves being drawn ever deeper into a complicated case, with bodies appearing at with a far to regular frequency, at least as far as Harry is concerned!
KKBB has an excellent prologue to its credit sequence… a boy magician sawing his assistant in half with a chainsaw! Does this have any relevance… that would be telling!
Even better this then leads into some superb opening credits, part Bond, part 60’s looking. Opening credits these days are so bland these days, so little originality or thought goes into them that anything different actually really does stand out.
That though is the essence of KKBB, the story, while good, is nothing new but the direction takes a novel approach to the things we are used to seeing. Shane Black has obviously learnt well from seeing his previous stories transferred to the big screen and picked up directing tips while doing it.
What I love most about the film though are all the stylish touches, the playful way he uses Downey as narrator and interjects little side stories (for example at a party Harry meets a woman who tells him she is an actress, we get a quick subcut showing the film she acted in, not quite what she says it is!) as Downey talks. Harry as narrator even pauses the film while talking, at one stage doing this because, as he says, he forgot to tell us something. So we pause rewind and learn what he forgot a few minutes earlier before getting back to where we were.
Downey and Kilmer are just superb, they make a great duo and seem to connect really well. The buddy side of the movie works as the do gel very well. Kilmer has always been an excellent, under rated actor and this shows how good he can be.
The story though is what it is all about and I love the whole homage to the classic pulp detective stories and film. You could almost imagine this in black and white, filmed in the 30’s with very few changes!
Another nice touch to play homage to those days is that the subheadings to the parts of the film are all taken from Raymond Chandler stories, and who better can you pay tribute to when you are making a PI/film noir type film?
This is a film people should see; it has a lot in it that most people could enjoy, comedy, buddy buddy, detective, mystery, and thriller. Why it never really got a proper release in the cinemas I’ll never know!
I will see this again sometime when it is out on DVD and I very rarely actually see a film a second time, there are always too many other new ones to see, so I guess that says a lot about it. Even films I rave about I will probably not buy or see again!
*For those interested the four subheadings are:
1: Lady In The Lake
2: Little Sister
3: Simple Art of Murder
4: Farewell My Lovely
The titles do fit each part of the film, superb writing once again!
Summary: A top quality, old style action comedy that is great from start to finish.
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