Review: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Someone told me today when I mentioned I had seen this film that this title is what they know _James Bond _as. Because, that’s what he does. Kiss, Kiss; Bang, Bang. Even with the colloquial meaning of Bang here in Australia, that’s still somewhat true. This film nearly lost me in the opening sequences. Sure, the young magician act was magnificent, and well done, but the party was poor. It was almost like the pre-screening audiences had totally missed all of the salient points, and there was a percieved need to bring in a narrator to bring everyone up to scratch. And if it can’t be done subtly then they took the easy way out: stopping the film mid-frame, and having the narrator talk over the top. Cheap. Luckily, as soon as the party was over, things settled down to a better tempo. The parallels between the film, and lives of Robert Downey Jnr and his love interest neatly intersected with those that were present in the novel on which the film touched many times. Downey Jnr himself was good as the lead character (and narrator - Grr), although since he was supposed to be playing a 34 year-old. Surely they could have actually found someone a bit younger, or who looked a bit younger to fill this role. Or did they find a nobody, train him up nicely, giving him detective lessons, just to get Downey at a cheaper rate? (In joke - watch the film and you’ll get it). The star of the show was undoubtably Val Kilmer, in the delightful role of Gay Perry, a formerly (?) gay private detective. Michelle Monaghan makes a very good struggling actress, and looks very nice with not much on. The big surprise is that of Harlan Dexter. A very old, very balding Corbin Bernsen is almost unrecognisable as the former star of LA Law. I didn’t even realise until researching for this review that it was indeed him! This film is most definitely worth a watch. I’m half tempted to re-edit this and remove the silly narration scenes, but I’m way to lazy to do that.