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Film review

Murderously and other adverbs

In the uneven Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, everything about action films is up for debate: violence, sexuality and even grammar.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published November 10, 2005

	[Photo: Warner Bros.
	Val Kilmer, left, and Robert Downey Jr. star in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, a violent film noir.

The title Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is the easiest aspect of Shane Black's movie to explain, and even that information isn't crystal clear. Some people trace it back 40 years to a Japanese film reviewer's nickname for James Bond. Around the same time, the late critic Pauline Kael wrote:

"The words "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,' which I saw on an Italian movie poster, are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies. This appeal is what attracts us, and ultimately what makes us despair when we begin to understand how seldom movies are more than this."

Black probably leans toward Kael's definition, adding a comma for the same grammatical purposes that characters in his movie sometimes pause to debate. Is the word "badly' an adverb? Figuring it out while corpses are piling up hardly seems a wise use of time. Maybe that's the writer-director's point; there's no room for intelligence in action movies, so he shoves it into each nook, cranny and gun barrel.

The result is a sordid, violent neo-film noir catering to the basest instincts of moviegoers who keep shelling out money for repetitive mayhem. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is also an arrogant joshing of those conventions and folks buying into them. Neither side of the cultural fence will be entirely satisfied with this uneasy blend, but it's a kick to observe anyone trying.

Black is essentially nibbling on the hand that fed him since 1987 when his debut screenplay for Lethal Weapon established many of the action flick cliches still being imitated. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is both an apology for soiling American cinema and surrender to the mass appeal that allowed it to happen. It's a bold experiment, yet only occasionally a great movie.

What are the standard elements of action movies? For starters, a plot existing only to reach the next violence spasm without much regard for cohesion. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang certainly has that. Then there's the buddy factor, mismatching two characters for a common purpose who'll snipe at each other with incredible glibness until the case is solved. There must be sex that doesn't matter except for skin exposure, cars banging together like pinballs and conspiracies that would require an army of special prosecutors to sort out.

Let's begin with the buddies: Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is a low-level thief whose escape from an armed victim leads him into auditions for a crime movie. Talk about Method acting. Harry gets the role and is ordered to hang around Los Angeles private eye Perry Van Shrike (Val Kilmer) for research. Perry's latest case will provide more dangerous on-the-job training than either expects.

Harry is the hesitant antihero we expect, but he's also the movie's on-screen director, pausing scenes to explain why they're in the wrong sequence, literally drawing arrows to what we're supposed to see. His narration sounds like someone who has seen a lot of crime movies and must now consider both crime and movies as a puzzled amateur. Black works out a lot of demons through Harry.

Perry is homosexual, known to all as Gay Perry. Downey would be interesting alone, but adding Kilmer's ironic confidence while deflating the latent homophobia in action movies makes for a brilliant pairing.

Perry also knows the tricks of covert crime, how to hide bodies and sneak into places where he shouldn't be. Harry needs a lot of advice in that department after an apparent drowning turns out to be murder. "Why?" is always the first question, but in Black's pointedly complex script, "Why?" is a question for everything happening until the end credits.

That's okay. Nobody is certain who did what in 1946's The Big Sleep to this day. That Raymond Chandler adaptation is Black's alibi for vagueness; he even divides the film into chapters named for the author's writings for evidence of his guilt. The plot is jammed with femmes, some of them fatale, fat cats with deadly agendas and bodies going thump in the night. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is shot in neon colors but its heart is dark as classic film noir.

Yet sometimes the self-conscious stunts are overbearing, when the twists on action cliches play too close to the sources. We are jarred by a last-minute detour that demolishes the fourth wall after chipping it worked so well before.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang winds up like Jarhead, a lump of provocative ideas and stylish production that doesn't quite congeal. Both will be remembered more for their great moments than for the overall experiences. That's enough to recommend either, since Kael's assessment of movie tastes still sounds right 40 years later.

Grade: B

DIRECTOR: Shane Black

CAST: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Shannyn Sossamon, Angela Lindvall

SCREENPLAY: Shane Black, based in part on the book Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday

RATING: R; violence, harsh profanity, sexual situations, nudity

RUNNING TIME: 102 min.

[Last modified November 9, 2005, 10:39:08]