Iqaluit

[ATTENTION: This review reveals content of the movie.]
KISS KISS BANG BANG was easily the most witty and entertaining English language movie of 2005. Robert Downey Jr. Was very good as usual and Val Kilmer seemed to be quite into playing the smartly written and amusing detective, 'Gay Perry'. Michelle Monahan was a true discovery: an actress with girl-next-door looks but who's far from plain. While she didn't have as much to do as her co-stars, she did manage to keep up with the fast and furious action. Speaking of which, people who thought the movie was slow are obviously confusing KISS KISS with another movie. Writer-director Shane Black kept things moving with either some well-placed action pieces or some dazzingly brilliant dialogue. I should also mention that the story, the character names, and chapter titles are tributes to Raymond Chandler novels. The plot of KISS KISS is almost impossible to sum up because, like a Chandler story, the narrative is so detailed and convoluted that you probably won't remember where point 'A' was by the time you reach point 'B'. This is not a sleight against the writing; the overabundance of plot is actually a very welcome change from the majority of Hollywood movies whose writing took all of an hour to produce. Shane Black's writing in KISS KISS not only provided the movie with a thick-as-molasses plot but also gave the movie some of the best quotations ever. Unfortunately, the majority of those lines include parts of the anatomy not normally referred to in polite conversation and acts not normally spoken of outside of Happy Hour at your local pub, so I am not going to repeat them here. This is not to say the humour is lowbrow. In fact, quite the opposite is true: while the language may be foul, the gags are, for the most part, incredibly clever and sophisticated. (It's been two years since I've seen the film and I'm still laughing at Downey Jr.'s attempt to correct Kilmer's grammar. The part with Downey Jr. Trying to work out what percentage 1 in 8 is also still a howler after repeated viewings.) I cannot say enough about how much this movie entertained me, and I hope others will discover it on DVD. It's a modern classic that richly deserves an audience that can appreciate intelligent humour and razor-sharp wit.

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