Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Showtime, Taxi, Hollywood Homicide, Bad Company, The Man? All horrible, and for children. The Bad Boys movies? People went to see them but they're crap in my book. Where are the buddy action comedies for adults these days? They are gone. No 48 Hrs, no The Last Boy Scout or The Long Kiss Goodnight, and most importantly, no more Lethal Weapons. Those masterpieces that defined the genre in the 80s and early 90s, and the man behind most of that was screenwriter Shane Black, who is back after years absent from Hollywood to bring us his directorial debut Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, an amazing homage to those film noir full of mysterious twist, explosive comedic action with a million lines to quote movies that we all used to love back in the day.

The story is all twisty, a mystery getting more and more ideas and possible killers and victims as our heroes try to solve it, or as they don't at times. They are Harry Lockhart and Gay Perry, classic names already. Harry (played by Robert Downey Jr.) is a small time thief who lands at a movie audition by accident when escaping from the police, gives the performance of his life, and ends up taken to Hollywood to try for a role in a big studio movie. He's going to play a detective in the movie, so they put him under the tutelage of Gay (Val Kilmer), a Los Angeles Private Detective that is actually gay. He takes Harry with him to follow someone for a case he's currently working on, but things start going wrong when the person they were following ends up dead, or killed someone, and then there's a body in a lake, and a body that ends up pissed in the shower, and a millionaire movie stars turned businessman (Corbin Bernsen) who's been fighting with his daughter over some money. There's also 2 hit men called Mr. Fire and Mr. Frying Pan, the latter didn't like to be called Mr. Ice so he changed it, and there's a pink hair girl beauty played by Shannyn Sossamon, and finally, a star making performance by the super amazing and delicious Michelle Monaghan who plays Harmony Lane, who may have a childhood connection with Harry.

I'm not going more into the story because a) It'd be a lot of spoilers and b) I'm not entirely sure I can get it right after what it took me to figure it out. But don't worry, you'll get it, and what's more important are the performances here. Robert Downey Jr. is possible at the height of his career with this performance, and yes, I'm counting Chaplin. He rules in this movie, exuding energy in each scene even when he has little idea what is going on or doing something wrong. He's Mel Gibson's Riggs, or tries to be, because when he tries to defend a girl that is about to be molested he gets his ass kicked, but at least he stops the guy. And there's lots of other stuff happening to him that I won't spoil either because this is seriously one of the funniest movies of the year.
The easy laughs could come from Kilmer's character just because he's gay, and many come but most in part because they are smart. Kilmer is so gay is crazy. And he's huge after all that weight he put for Alexander. He also gets some of the best lines of the year if not ever like his response when Harry asks him if he's really gay: "No, I'm knee deep in pussy, I just can't get rid of the name" or "This isn't good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker". He's also got a faggot gun, just wait to see it and what it does. And the way these 2 guys work together is great, perfect chemistry.
As I mentioned before, Michelle Monaghan is beautiful, but she can also act. I can't believe how well she managed to be a presence on screen having to share it with those two acting monsters. She's fearless and funny and serious, and her character is not the usual damsel in distress from these kind of movies which kind of helps.

All that stuff works because of the real star of the movie, Shane Black. He puts Robert Downey Jr. to narrate the movie from the star and this has to be the greatest narration of a movie ever. As Downey tells the story, at times he has to stop and go back a few scenes because he forgot to tell us something, he even talks to us and tells us how a scene was not necessary in the movie, or how the ending wont go to long ala Lord of the Rings. But what's better is that the movie is a satire of this kind of movies, and Downey comments on that too, how something should happen just because it always happens in this kind of movies, and then it happens, and it's the funniest thing ever. If I have to describe it, I'd say that it's like Not Another Teen Movie, where they were mocking teen movies but everything was happening in their movie too. This is the same, but seriously funny, and not stupid.

A great fast paced 80s feeling story, sharp, smart and funny dialogue made for today's world that only Black could make, and an excellent score by John Ottman. Add to that the remarkable performances, the funny comedy and the beautiful women in hot outfits and there's no other fact other than Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is brilliant. One of the best movies of the year, one that we, not knowingly, have been waiting for, and needed. Shane Black, please don't leave us again.