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'Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang': Stylish Hollywood sendup

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Narrators don't come more unreliable than Robert Downey Jr. in "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," a tongue-in-cheek pulp-fiction parody that's also a stylish sendup of everything silly in Hollywood. Which is a lot.

The title refers to the words Pauline Kael once saw on an Italian movie poster and later used as the title of one of her collections of film criticism. In other words, that's pretty much what Hollywood movies come down to: sex and guns.

Warner Brothers Pictures

'Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang'

The verdict: Think "Get Shorty," only loonier.

Director: Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen
Run time: 102 minutes
Release date: Oct. 21, 2005
Rating: R for language, violence and sexuality/nudity.
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Our hero, Larry (Downey), is a petty crook who inadvertently barges into an audition for the role of a thug while fleeing New York's finest. Impressed by his, um, authenticity, Larry is shipped to L.A. for a screen test. He's coached by Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer), a homosexual detective known to all as Gay Perry, and invited to Hollywood parties where all the girls are named Jylle and Flicka. "Your typical L.A. girl," Larry says in voice-over. "Which means she wasn't from L.A. but some place in Indiana."

And, of course, there's the Girl. Aspiring actress Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), who's also the classmate Larry had a mad crush on in high school.

Somehow, the three get caught up in a real-life murder mystery when Larry pretends to be a real-life private dick to impress Harmony. There are car chases, tenuous clues, a missing finger and a rising body count. "Gorgeous girls everywhere you turn," someone says. "Dead ones, too."

Writer/first-time director Shane Black first barged into Hollywood in 1987, his "Lethal Weapon" script in hand. He helped pioneer the mindless mix of glib one-liners and explosions that created the Hollywood blockbuster as we know it today. "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" could be construed as a kind of oblique mea culpa, but Black is having too much fun to seem all that apologetic.

So is his cast. Downey immediately creates a breezy, stream-of-consciousness, we're-in-this-together rapport with the audience. ("My name is Larry and I'll be your narrator.") Occasionally, he even chastises himself for "bad narrating."

Pairing him with Kilmer is sheer genius. Hard to believe, but Kilmer is more or less the straight man, meaning he's slightly less nutty than his costar. They play off each other with such relish and expertise you wish they could make this a regular gig.

The dialogue is loaded with wisecracks and in-jokes. At one typically decadent Hollywood gathering, Larry and Harmony take turns describing the other guests as "the Brazilian Billy Bob Thornton" or "the Native American Joe Pesci." (The bigger joke: the descriptions are exactly right.)

"Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" is mean, fast and funny, and it all adds up to a "Seinfeld-ian" nothing (no wonder Larry's favorite fictional gumshoe is named Johnny Gossamer, as in gossamer-thin). Flashy and full of itself, this movie doesn't tell us anything new about Hollywood. In fact, it doesn't tell us anything new about anything — just that Downey, Kilmer and some clever writing can make for a fun time at the movies.

But you probably already knew that.