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I never really wanted to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang… I think it was mostly for the title. When I hear the words Kiss Kiss Bang Bang I immediately conjure up images of two high school students parked in a shady parking lot somewhere carrying out the actions described in the title. This is definitely one of the worst titled movies of recent history. However, someone requested it, so I watched it.

This movie, for those of you that don’t know, is a thriller, comedy hybrid starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. Robert Downey Jr. plays a criminal who lucks his way into a movie role and flies to L.A. to train under the expert detective eye of Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer excels in the role of Gay Perry… and yes, he’s actually gay… in the movie, not real life. I don’t know anything about him in real life.
The plot is simple… kind of. People start dying. Twists happen. Downey Jr. and Kilmer must find out what is going on as their lives are at risk. Then you have some more twists, interspersed with self-referential dialogue and narration… followed by a couple gay jokes… some more self-referential dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, it’s actually pretty cool if you can fool yourself into liking that stuff and not find it sickeningly pretentious. Unfortunately, I have a rather hard time fooling myself and rolled my eyes several times through the movie.

The best thing about this movie is the chemistry between Downey Jr. and Kilmer. The interplay between the two characters is natural and amusing and really keeps this movie from plummeting into the depths of trendy Hollywood hell. Perhaps the movie would have worked better if it was a straight up comedy… because the thriller elements of this movie were rather uninteresting. Give me an hour and a half of Kilmer and Downey riffing off each other and you’ve got me sold.

As far as the rest of the movie goes, it was shittier than an Idaho truck stop’s toilet. I don’t remember if I had a headache before the movie started, but I definitely have one now. The Robert Downey Jr. narration is horrible. He talks like a junky on speed… maybe when they were in the sound recording booth it reminded him of his old prison cell and made him nervous. Either way, the dialogue was even worse than Downey’s narration. It’s regrettable that this is the case, because in long parts of the movie where there was no narration, I actually started to like the movie… then that damn junky would start mumbling and spouting trite garbage that I’m sure the rest of the world mistakes for “wit.”

Don’t lay the blame for this movie at the feet of the actors. Lay the blame at the feet of first time director Shane Black… the man who brought us so many “all glitz no substance” action movies throughout the nineties… can you say Last Action Hero? All of the flaws of this movie are directly attributable to the atrocious taste and writing of Black. It’s a shame so many people bought into this guy’s crap, because I’m sure he still has a job in Hollywood. If only he could capture the originality of his early writing, when he penned such classic flicks as Lethal Weapon and The Monster Squad. Oh well, those days are gone. I did however enjoy Black’s nod to Fred Dekker, the man that directed his first screenplay, The Monster Squad. In a film called Night of the Creeps, which was directed by Dekker as well, the detective constantly says “Thrill me,” whenever he answers the phone. It was a nice touch and homage by Black to use the same line when Kilmer’s detective character answered the phone.

Final Synopsis: If you get off on meaning light thrillers, then check this out. If you just want to see two great actors play off each other, then this is good for a few laughs. If you can’t stand Hollywood’s pretentious self-referential bullshit, this will make you sick and give you a killer headache like I have right now.

Points Lost: -1 for being a clichéd thriller with all of the cliché thriller elements, -1 for shitty narration, -1 for pretentious dialogue, -1 for twists that no one cared about, -1 for making a boring thriller, -1 for making a good comedy and burdening it with a boring thriller, -1 for a really shitty title

Burning Question: Did you ever Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in high school?

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
4/10

Tags: 2005, buddy cop flick, comma, cop movie, corbin bernsen, crime drama, dash mihok, detective story, judie aronson, larry miller, latest movie reviews, laurence fishburne, michelle monaghan, police story, recent, richard grieco, Robert Downey Jr., shane black, shannyn sossamon, val kilmer