Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is what happens when the enfant terrible gets the keys to the candy store. The directorial debut of Shane Black, who wrote Lethal Weapon and the notoriously violent The Long Kiss Good Night, has a jaded screenwriter’s dream ingredients: a stylized look, smartass dialogue, a hyperactive self-reflexive narrative, and film-geek/industry references. Surprisingly or not, depending on how much espresso you drink, this screwball action movie is entertaining but ultimately overdoses on itself.
Always at his best when flying in all directions (see Chaplin), lead Robert Downey Jr., finds a good fit in Harry, a petty thief who whirlwinds into a murder plot after impersonating a P.I. Val Kilmer is a tough tokenly gay detective who becomes his guide of sorts, and Michelle Monaghan flounces about as the high school sweetheart manqué that Harry meets again for the first time.
At the rate they dash about, they’re all closer to X’s and O’s on a telestrator than characters, and that’s not all bad. By the stylized light of a cool-red-and-blue fuck-off L.A., the action sequences and plotting slide into place with an almost Rube Goldbergesque intricacy, self-consciously one step ahead of expectations (and largely successful) Black’s cynical dialogue, half of which is boldly left to overlap and muttering, is caustically witty, often taking an extra beat to sink in.
The self-evident problem with a film so impatient with itself is death by its own hand: all lulls devastate, even snide romance suffocates in the nihilistic void, and the tail-biting plot collapses. Downey’s terminally-game deadpan is impressive, yet you share his character’s exhaustion in the third-act hangover. A repeat viewing might well produce a different experience, but who could survive it?
Opens October 21
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