Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

I loved this movie. It’s classic film noir style with great sarcastic dialogue, a fast-moving plot, and entertaining characters. I don’t know what film noir actually is, but it just sort of seems like the proper description for this movie’s style.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is told in chapters and narrated by Robert Downey Jr’s character, Harry Lockhart, who describes four exciting and dangerous days that he spent in Los Angeles. Firstly, the narration style was great, as it is told in a conversational manner wherein Harry sometimes freezes frames to engage in some verbal editorializing. Harry starts out his night as a thief, attempting to steal some expensive electronic equipment when alarms go off and he is forced to flee. In his efforts to evade the police, Harry stumbles into what turns out to be an audition for the role of a detective in a movie. Not wanting to blow his newfound cover, Harry goes along with the audition and is surprised when the director wants to fly him out to Los Angeles for detective lessons, in order to familiarize him with the role. Once there, the director introduces Harry to Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), a sarcastic and homosexual private detective (hence the nickname “gay”), who will be taking Harry along during his investigations. By a happy twist of fate, Harry’s high school dream girl, Harmony Lane (Michelle Monaghan), happens to be at the director’s party as well, so Harry strikes up a conversation in the hope of finally getting into her pants. Sadly, however, he only manages to get into her less-attractive friend’s pants. Harry rejoins Gay Perry the following day for some detective work, which quickly becomes less dull when they witness some burly henchmen driving a car into the lake with a dead woman inside it. As Gay Perry and Harry begin investigating the murder, they find themselves caught up in a really confusing mystery that was somewhat difficult to follow, but exciting nonetheless.

Harry spends a lot of time talking in this film, whether he’s talking to other characters or narrating the story for the audience, but he was always quite funny. His scenes with Gay Perry were by far the most hilarious, as Gay Perry was blessed with withering sarcasm and a great sense of timing. None of the characters take their precarious situations all that seriously for that matter, choosing instead to deflect danger with appropriately-timed and detached commentary—which allows the audience to laugh rather than cringe when someone gets his head blown off. This movie reminded me of Pulp Fiction in that way, as what would normally be seen as disturbing and gross is instead funny and ironic. I never once felt bored with the story, as the pace was steady and quick, and each of the situations held my attention completely. The characters themselves were entertaining to watch as well, so really no matter what they were doing I found myself interested in the outcome. The mystery wraps up fairly well, and although the actual details of the plot were difficult to follow at times, it turned out to be quite simple—which is nice, for a change, because it prevents glaring holes in the story that annoy the crap out of you later.

I definitely recommend this movie, although not if one hates Robert Downey Jr. The humor is very sarcastic and dry, and none of the characters take themselves seriously; nor, in fact, does the movie itself. It’s a good murder mystery with an interesting film noir style I suppose, and I strongly recommend it for its humor alone, if nothing else.