Customer Reviews
A rare detective movie treat - By: Sam Anders, 25 Oct 2008 
Shane Black is easily one of the pioneering writers in action films, being responsible for the entire Lethal Weapon series, The Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero & The Long Kiss Goodnight. It wasn't until Kiss Kiss Bang Bang though, that he took the reins as a director & the result is one of the most enjoyable films in years.
The film follows Robert Downey Jr & Val Kilmer as a burglar who accidentallly lands a major hollywood role & the private detective tasked with giveing him detective lessons respectively. Downey Jr breathes charisma as the perpetuallly out of his depth Harry, one of the most likeable protagonists Black has written. Kilmer plays the brilliantly grumpy Gay Perry completely deadpan & makes the perfect straight man to Harry's fumbling incompetence.
The plot follows Harry as his detective lessons become mixed up with a reali life murder, a chance meeting with a high school crush (Michelle Monaghan), & there's little more I can say without spoiling the plot. The plot itself harks back to classic detective stories circa Raymond Chandler & Dashiell Hammett, thankfully being a fair bit more complicated than a lot of mystery films recently.
The movie has a fantasticallly dark sense of humour, complemented well by Shane Black's trademark dialogue & the main cast's perfect delivery but also has very dark edges to it's story & some reasonably violent action sequences. These traits wouldn't have been out of place in the 80s but these days it's an unexpected but very welcome surprise, a more adult treatment of its audience than you'll find in most other movies.
If you're a fan of Shane Black's other films or detective movies in general then you definitely owe it to yourself to check out Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It's a highly entertaining, grown up movie from a great writer with some excellent performances; & it's so much fun you're bound to come back again & again.
watched it 2 times (wednesday & thursday) - I still cant understand the film completely. - By: Powers, 18 Sep 2008 
Clever (though not flawless) & fun movie, but waaay to confusing. people that say otherwise LIE!!
f.ex Why did the litle sis steal big.sis creditcard & stuff ? I thought she had enough money now that she was Dexters daughter.
why, when Jr. mentioned no undies ,and zoom!!? Straight to the looney-bin ?
+ funny moment ,Harmony spots bad guys in a car; H;Perry, thats them! P;who's them? H;12o'clock! you said it's a black guy & a white guy, right? -ARGH.. Are black & white guys so rarely seen in a car together in L.A that.. oh yeah.
Highly unlikely.
+ Another ++ things I didnt get! I wont bother watching it a 3rd time to try & understand it because I CLEARLY wont!
Buy it for the entertainment, it is fun, but dont try to get it...because you probably will not ;)
Clever and funny, maybe too clever, and with a fine performance by Robert Downey Jr - By: C. O. DeRiemer, 09 Jul 2008 Part of me clearly appreciates the clever, loving riffs on noir movies, but part of me is seriously put off by the nudge, nudge, ain't I being clever pretensions of writer-director Shane Black. At one time, & maybe he still is, Shane was Hollywood's highest paid screenwriter, proud author of such big-time drek as the Lethal Weapon movies, Monster Squad, Last Action Hero & The Last Boy Scout. In other words, he knew how to hit a bulls-eye with the 18 to 28 male target audience. In Hollywood, that spells quality writing with a cap Q.
With Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, we're witness to one of Hollywood's power players with a potty mouth wrestling with style & witty parody. The witty parody wins, but it's a close calll. Why? Because Black can't resist self-congratulatory in-jokes & reveling in his own cleverness. He's the smart-mouth kid who tries to be the nonstop laugh & life of the party.
The set-up is nice...petty thief Harry Lockhart is running from the cops in New York when he busts in on a talent calll for a movie. In short order he's sent to Los Angeles for more tests for a part of a private eye. Real private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) is assigned to prep him. Then at a party he encounters Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), a woman he fell for when they were school children in Indiana. Before long Harry, who isn't too bright but is well meaning, is finding bodies in car trunks, on floors & in beds. He's beaten, shot, tortured & has a finger swalllowed by a friendly mutt. Gay Perry keeps rescuing him, Harmony keeps tempting him & hit men dog them alll. The mystery is almost irrelevant. It's the brittle style, smart-mouth dialogue, loving reverence for the noir sensibility & the acting that gives us pleasure. For my taste, Black's Hollywood insider cleverness in both the writing & the directing starts to get tiresome...not enough to be a complete turn-off, but enough that I wished he'd stop nudging us with his elbow. The movie chapter headings he gives us, each one a title of a Raymond Chandler novel, is a case in point. Clever & amusing the first time, tiresome the second time & "alright, alll ready, we get it" each time after.
Kilmer & Monaghan do fine jobs with their roles, but it is Downey who reallly shines. He now has a hard-earned, lived-in face that serves him well. He can handle drama as easily as comedy. With Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, his Harry Lockhart is not exactly a loser, but he certainly is slow at grasping essential facts. Downey gives Harry a great deal for us to like. Mainly, he gives us a well-intentioned guy to whom alll sorts of things happen. Harry survives because he's serious, because he's loyal to Perry, because he loves Harmony & because Downey has superb comic timing.
The title comes from Pauline Kael by way of an old Italian movie poster. Says Roger Ebert, "These four words, she wrote, `are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of the movies. The appeal is what attracts us & ultimately makes us despair when we begin to understand how seldom movies are more than this.'" Hmmm...like the Lethal Weapon movies, Monster Squad, Last Action Hero & The Last Boy Scout?
The movie looks just fine. The extras include a commentary track by Kilmer, Downey & Black as well as a gag outtake reel. I didn't bother with either.
modern classic - By: martin thomas, 06 Jun 2008 
i reallly love this film which is one of the funnist films ive seen for quite a while a definate must see
Great film, few issues with the DVD - By: Jenesis, 09 May 2008 I won't review the actual film here (apart from saying I liked it a lot) - you can find far better ones on movie review websites.
The DVD itself has a few issues. First, you have to go through three pages of menus on insertion to select "United Kingdom" & get everything in English. Then, you get two unskippable trailers (including the dire anti-piracy one) before you even get to the main menu.
Basicallly, you get what you pay for with this budget DVD. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned "put DVD in & press play" to watch the movie?
