Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

<b>Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Directed by Shane Black
Warner Bros. Pictures
**</b>

Shane Black loves murder mysteries. So do lots of people. Shane Black seems to love watching men urinate on women’s corpses. So do fewer people, and probably some websites.

“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” is a black comedy of very questionable taste.

The film’s only innovation is the weirdness of the characters and casting: Robert Downey Jr. plays Harry, a dim-witted thief, while Val Kilmer plays his foil: mean, burly private eye “Gay” Perry, whose handle doesn’t spring from his constant happiness.

The plot is both extremely complex and devoid of logic: while fleeing from the cops in New York, Harry stumbles into a film audition and pretends to try out for the part. They like him and fly him to L.A., where he’s introduced to Perry as training for his role. Somehow, Harry gets drawn into a mess involving a couple of hit men and a lot of killing.

Black was one of Hollywood’s darlings when his script for “Lethal Weapon” reestablished the buddy-cop genre. With “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” he became Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter and went home to enjoy the smell of millions of dollar bills. And that, apparently, made him bitter. Who knew that getting paid lots of money could get you so angry?

Downey often talks directly to the audience about the strangeness of his situation. Having the main character point out plot holes doesn’t make them any less annoying, and Downey’s chatter goes from funny to tiresome.

The movie does have some genuinely hilarious moments, most of which come from Black’s depictions of the absurdity of L.A. When Harry follows Gay Perry into a holiday party, he gets distracted by the naked contortionists writhing in glass boxes on the dance floor. Elsewhere, in a bar, Harry and his lady love take turns pointing out multi-ethnic look-alikes of famous people (“The bathroom? Oh, it’s over there next to the Filipino Steven Seagal”).

However, most of the jokes come from the interaction between wimpy Harry and hard-boiled Perry. The script can’t help but fall back on old standards and gay-baiting: Perry’s phone lights up with an obnoxious “I Will Survive” ringtone, and he gets himself out of one jam by seducing an armed thug.

He even calls his Derringer a “faggot gun”: “Good for a couple of shots, and then you have to throw it away.” Like Harry’s constant fourth-wall breaking, jokes about Perry’s gayness should have been used more sparingly.

The ridiculous plot is another source of boredom, since Black doesn’t seem to care about it anyway; he just uses it as a vehicle for a bunch of “that’s so Hollywood!” jokes, most of which involve dead women. In one of the few genuinely funny scenes, Downey shoots a thug while hanging from the arm of a dead girl whose coffin is stuck on an L.A. overpass sign.

Other times the film is just obscene, such as when Downey accidentally urinates on a (different) dead girl’s body. The film’s most dubious aspect, though, is a bizarre half-baked subplot involving child sexual abuse.

Still, Downey and Kilmer settle easily into their roles. We’re used to seeing Downey as the blundering clown, and he’s pretty good as a fast-talking New Yorker in Hollywood. Despite his character’s sexuality, Kilmer essentially plays the same tough guy he did in “Spartan” and “The Saint.”

This film isn’t going to win any Oscars and it won’t be a blockbuster, but it has the makings of a minor cult hit. For anyone who loves pulp, hates Hollywood, or feels like they need a bit more of Robert Downey, Jr. in their lives, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” will be a worthwhile rental on DVD.

—Staff writer Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at mohammed@fas.harvard.edu.