“”I’ll be your narrator,”” announces Harry (Robert Downey Jr.), the main character of “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” setting the audience up for a familiar noir-detective framework. But not so. Harry, a small-time New York crook who accidentally lands in Hollywood and discovers its underbelly — with the help of a girl and yes, lots of guns — turns out to be an admittedly awful narrator. He stops the reel, points out a “terrible scene” and gets mixed up trying to give the back story. All this self-reflexivity is good fun for about two minutes, but by the time he comments on yet another “dumb movie thing,” you want to answer, “You’re right. It is. Now either make it better, or shush up.” Of course, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” is a satire of the movies — you don’t have to look much further than the film’s title — but instead of running with that, it’s used as an excuse for a shiny, speedy and ultimately flat story.
There’s a reason for all this self-consciousness. After a decade of hibernation, big-deal screenwriter Shane Black (of “Lethal Weapon” fame) is finally back with a new film that he not only writes, but directs as well. After years of making the (very) big bucks handing his scripts over to others, Black evidently tries to pour too many elements into his comeback effort, hesitating between genres until it seems he’s going to achieve the improbable feat of cross-pollinating “Pulp Fiction” and “There’s Something About Mary.”
In the end, though, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” settles for being a poor man’s “Pulp Fiction,” trying to please the crowds by adding more laugh-out-loud funny and more morality (a discordant incest story somehow seeps into the otherwise irreverent tone). The mystery’s plot twists are loosely based on actual pulp fiction novels that both Black and his characters love; yet just like those novels, plot twists sustain interest only momentarily thanks to the dizzying speed at which events unravel.
What gives the audience something to hang onto is the oftentimes hilarious banter between Harry and gay Gay Perry (played by Val Kilmer), a tough private investigator who’s supposed to train Harry for his role in an upcoming detective film before the real bodies start piling up. Black hasn’t forgotten how to write the partners-in-crime dynamic that made action flicks like “Lethal Weapon” palatable, and he really lets loose this time around. None of it has a thing to do with the plot, but the constant flow of tangential humor offers momentary relief from a story that otherwise requires too much effort to keep track of. Since the writer/director is cueing you to take the whole thing as an elaborate prank, but gets his gears stuck in the reality of the action, it’s easy to stop caring before the end.
The good news for Black is that he’s unearthed a hidden resource: directing. The style is seamless Hollywood, but it’s fresh and effective. He also manages to pull great performances out of both Downey and Kilmer, neither of whom are reputed to be easy to get along with. Downey’s found his perfect fit in the sarcastic yet kindhearted loser-turned-hero Harry, and Kilmer, though relegated to second billing, pumps the no-nonsense private eye character for all it’s worth. And there’s also the girl: Michelle Monaghan plays the eye candy in the role of Harry’s long-lost high school sweetheart in dire need of a detective. She is spunky, charming (read: repeated boob shots) and smart, too.
It’s too bad, but it’s impossible to truly care for the cast of characters in a film that is all too transparently about one man’s plea for recognition. Thankfully, you can easily choose to ignore the misguided pretensions, sit back and enjoy the one-liners.
