Saturday, November 12, 2005
Review: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
All you need to know is this: violence hasn’t been this fun and funny since Pulp Fiction.
The setup for the movie is simple: Robert Downey, Jr plays a petty thief who blunders his way into a screen test, ends up in LA where he meets Gay Perry (played by Val Kilmer) and his childhood love. Soon, people are dying, mysteries are unraveling, and the audience is rolling around laughing at some truly hideous things.
As a humorous take on buddy movies, film noir, and LA, the movie is clever and quick. There are a few moments where it is perhaps too self-aware—where the winking is just a little too obvious. There are a few moments where the plot doesn’t hold together as well as it should. Still, only someone truly intent on disliking the movie would dwell on the shortcomings.
The movie is just too witty, the action too quick and the dialogue too sharp to let a few flaws stand in the way of enjoyment.
The direction is strong, but it’s the script and the acting that really set it apart. Kilmer and Downey are brilliant in roles that are more demanding than they might appear, and, without the chemistry that they share, the quick dialogue would have fallen flat.
But, like Pulp Fiction, it is also a movie that wallows in violence and has its fair share of profanity and even a bare breast or three. This isn’t a movie that’s bound to go over too well with the Baptists and it would be a severely irresponsible parent that mistakes this one for good, wholesome family fare.
For the rest of us, though, it’s a treat.
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Comments & Trackbacks
Three breasts? Yikes!
Er, how about three pairs?
I thought they were going all mutant sci-fi on me.
Sounds great! Can’t wait to take the boy to see it!
No way! You saw this, too? I just finished writing a succinct review and refreshed my tab with your site, and ta-da! Heh. I linked and trackbacked :D
P.S. I loved this film :D Course, I always liked Robert Downey, Jr.
Oh, and I’m a .com-er in EE, now :D
Hey, congratulations! How do you like your new stuff? I’ll fix my blogroll later.
Downey was great--although, damned if the man doesn’t look a heck of a lot older than it seems he should.
Do you really congratulate someone when they move to EE? I guess whether you congratulate or offer condolences you do it in comments. A trackback sure as hell won’t work.
On Downey, I think he looks pretty good. But heavy drug use will certainly age you. Did you know that Keith Richards is 38? It’s true!
OMG- Keith Richards looks like someone washed and rinsed him on hot and forgot him in the washer for a week.
Thank you, Z. :D Downey does look older, but he is just a witty, his delivery unmatched, and wow! Val Kilmer? He was great. I wonder if his name was a play on words (Gay Perry)?
Yes, true the trackback didn’t work for some reason, but perhaps that’s because Z has it set on high security?
I don’t know nothin’ about EE’s security settings. I do know that both EE blogs I link to frequently (this and Protein Wisdom) are both broken.
Really? Well perhaps the solution to test it is to trackback me? :D
I am new and still learning to navigate so I can’t really speak to the efficiency yet. I just like the spam protection, comment moderation and the templates for publishing, etc.
What blogging software were you using?
Are you watching this game, Z? I didn’t realize that Anderson didn’t play football in high school, in fact, he was in the band! Do you think that if I started working out I could play running-back for the Broncos? After all, I was in the marching band.
Rae - My test trackback half-worked. Oddly, auto-discovery failed, but the ping worked when I copied and pasted your trackback address in. That’s exactly the opposite of what happens with most EE blogs. Usually with RS and PW the autodiscovery works great, but the pings never actually go through.
For the record, I’m a total MT homer. But EE seems to be a great product, other than the trackback difficulties.
Matt, I was using MT, but 2.64.
The first time I saw Pulp Fiction I laughed so hard for so long when Marvin got his face blow off that I missed large enough chuck of the movie that it failed to make sense, and I had to watch it 100 more times. If this is as funny as that, I’ll check it out for sure.
I laughed my butt off when I first saw that scene. Even my ex-wife--who had serious issues with movie gore and violence--laughed at that scene.
Shannon, I don’t know if Kiss Kiss is as funny as Pulp Fiction was, but it’s the nearest point of comparison that I could think of. I can’t imagine someone who enjoyed Pulp Fiction failing to walk out of this one without a smile on their face. Of course, the opposite hold true: anyone who didn’t like Pulp Fiction is well-advised to stay clear of this one.
I likened it to Kill Pulp and Pulp Fiction for exactly those reasons, Z. Funny violence.
Shannon, where are you? What happened to your funny words?
I don’t think that’s a movie that you can actually look at… And the scene with the three breasts it’s exagerate.