FILM REVIEW: KISS KISS BANG BANG Dir: Shane Black. Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Ali Hillis. Do you remember the pre-Tarantino era? When action films punched you in the face for 89 minutes with hilariously bad dialogue, clichéd plotlines and over muscle-y heroes? It was a terrible, terrible time, admittedly, but ever since Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction we’ve had far too many over stylised, oddly structured action flicks which have all too often disappointed. Shane Black of course used to be the king of the high end of the action genre, receiving high sums for writing Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout, but after a fair few years out of the industry, he’s returned with a post-modern action flick, one with a narrative which goes all over the place and filled with quirky characters and catchy if hardly memorable dialogue. Compared to the greats of the genre, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is fairly forgettable, it’s the filmic equivalent of fast food, you know you shouldn’t enjoy it whilst consuming it, yet you do, but you also never think about it once it’s finished. It does just about manage to avoid the more obvious clichés of the genre, thankfully, but only just about. It’s lazy too, which is almost unforgivable, considering the great opening ten minutes or so, in which it leaps all over the place delightfully. But then it runs out of steam, and becomes far too predictable.
	It feels at times like Black’s ticking off the boxes as well. The two leads are unconventional (One’s gay! One’s a criminal!), the romantic interest has a disturbing past (though she’s female of course, Black doesn’t want to upset his US target audience too much, sadly), and the plot has an unusual structure, though a fairly one dimensional one it has to be said. Despite all of this, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is pretty enjoyable stuff. Robert Downey Jnr makes for a great lead, and Val Kilmer’s not too bad in it either, though it’s hardly the career revitalising role that you might have heard it is. The dialogue’s Black’s strongest point, and unsurprisingly for a man who’s made a career out of them, the set pieces have a great energy to them, and if the plot is all a little rushed at the end, at least it’s satisfyingly so. But it’s not enough, considering the hype that surrounded it before its release. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang closed this year’s London Film Festival, but isn’t really deserving of such an accolade. Yes, it’s fun enough, but only worth watching if you’re in the mood for something undemanding. Alex Finch. Click here to talk about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on the Garbled music forum.
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