You'll want to pay careful attention or you'll get lost pretty quickly. I admit that I openly mocked other reviews that called the story "needlessly complex," but now that I have seen it I totally understand what these reviews are talking about. My main complaint is that the story does get a little too confusing.
It works well enough as a farce without ever coming off as a pure parody. It takes itself just seriously enough to keep you in suspense, but it's irreverent enough to simply be fun and entertaining. If I were forced to affix a label to this then I suppose I'd say it's a darkly comedic murder mystery. Sure, there's a scene that involves peeing on a corpse, but it has to be seen in its context to be appreciated. The humor is never forced and doesn't have to resort to slapstick or flatulent puppies just to get cheap laughs. I love to be caught off guard by unexpected moments that make me laugh at things that might not be so funny if they were witnessed in the real world. and some of the crazy situations they find themselves in. The laughs mostly come from the chemistry between Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. Is there action? Yes! After all, it's by the same guy who wrote the Lethal Weapon movies. Clever, huh? That's what makes Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang so fun. When you can't "genre-lize" something then you can't easily force it into any one specific genre. I'll just say, "Oh well, I guess you're just in the minority on this one!" What I like most about Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is it's so hard to "genre-lize." See what I did there? Add that term to the Movie Mark Dictionary.
Will I refund your ticket money if you *do* get bored? No, absolutely not. You may be offended, you may not appreciate the dark humor, and you may not get the style, but I would predict the majority of you won't get bored. The pace comes at us almost as quickly as the clever dialogue, making it nearly impossible for the average viewer to get bored. I needed this breath of fresh air after being blind-sided by the news that a remake of Robocop might be on its way. It's a nice change of pace from all of the sequels and remakes we've been inundated with recently. Director Shane Black loved the term and chose it as the movie's title because, "it so clearly represented what this film is." And what exactly is this film? Good question. The term "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" was first coined in the 1960s by the Japanese press as a nickname for James Bond. But as a whole very entertaining, with snappy dialogue, clever writing, and enjoyable performances. And I must say, Michelle Monaghan! Wow! She really gave one sexy performance! It derails a bit in the end and goes so wildly over the top with shaggy-dog jokes, ridiculously stupid bad guys and buddy-clichés, it makes Austin Powers look like a straight-faced classic. Perhaps a bit too clever for it's own good with so many "clever" plot turns, that I was lost in the end, but perhaps I'm not as clever as I wish to. Downey and Kilmer seem to have the time of their lives, but not to the viewer's expense.
Val Kilmer plays the real private eye, Perry Shrike (half the fun is picking the right name!) who has to learn him the trades of the business, but soon they both wind up in a murder mystery with so many twists and turns (and bodies), it'll make your head spin. Petty thief Harry Lockhardt (Downey) is a lovable loser who accidentally winds up in the movie business, auditioning for the part of a private detective. Before you can even think about the next cliché in the film, it grabs it, makes a mockery of it and proceeds at break-neck pace. Yes, a buddy-movie, film-noir, murder mystery, crime-thriller, all rolled into one hip modern self-referential update, packed with amusing references to all the clichés of the genres depicted. Think of a Raymond Chandler murder mystery, updated to a sort of modern and enormously. I didn't expect much from this at all, but it turned out pretty good.
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