SeX. MurdEr. MyStery. Welcome to the party.
Very clever romantic-comedy-thriller manages to mix all the genres in a witty and subversive way. With an excellent cast and top-notch script the release is only let down by a very 'vanilla' DVD release that doesn't include so much as a trailer. Fans should probably wait for the inevitable 'Special Edition' release with some half-decent extra's.
Jacket Blurb
They say love and money don't mix, but you can't blame Harry Lockhart for trying. He's been whisked from a life of petty crime to Hollywood, where he'll audition for the role of a movie detective and be tutored for the part by a private eye. Now all Harry has to do is convince the dream girl he meets that he's an actual detective. And try not to stumble over the corpses as reel life abruptly gives way to the real.
Lights, camera, plenty of action! Shane Black ('Lethal Weapon') provides the screenplay and makes his directing debut in a clever fusion of buddy movie and hardboiled noir produced by Joel Silver. Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan play the thrust-together trio - a naive schemer, a tough-as-nails gay detective, and a hopeful actress clinging to her dream. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Watch Watch.
Film Review
For once a movie that does everything it says on the tin. A great Raymond Chandler-esque thriller with a believable romance at its heart, but told with a cynicism and humour that is, far more frequently than you have any right to expect, laugh-out-loud funny. This is writer Shane Black's directorial debut and there were times during the first half hour when I thought he was trying to be too clever with the genre, with its constant reversal of narration, between-frame sudden freezes and rewinds. The movie looked like it was teetering on the edge of success and I found myself wondering if the oh-so-clever writer/director wasn't laughing AT us rather than WITH us.
One hour later I emerged convinced, and impressed at the clever blending of styles the director achieved. The action scenes are brilliantly done, and thrillingly underplayed. The complicated u-turns and dead-ends would do Raymond Chandler proud. The streets of L.A. never looked better. But it's the chemistry between his three leads and the excellent laugh-out-loud script one-liners that make this such an impressive movie. Here's that rare thing - a 'buddy' movie about two outrageously matched characters who you actually end up caring about. In a world where it seems you have to descend to endless replays of the gurning Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson to justify Hollywood financing for a 'comedy' movie, this film comes as a blessed relief, I can tell you.
Not that the film doesn't have its gross-out moments, but they're done so well, and fall into place so easily in the script, that you forgive any excesses because you're laughing so hard. To this viewer 'It's all about Mary' should have been called 'It's all about a movie based around two over-extended gross-out jokes', but 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' suffers from none of those problems.
The three leads are superb. Val Kilmer, somewhat ironically, plays it 'straight' as 'Gay Perry', the private detective who finds himself working alongside the accident-prone newcomer to town, Robert Downey Junior, who gets the much meatier role this time round. The chemistry between the two is obvious, and all the more amazing given their reputations for being 'difficult' and some pretty dire performances in recent movies. But, for me, Michelle Monaghan was the real stand-out. She has a difficult role to play as the romantic interest having to switch between being sleazy, being sexy and being an action hero, often within the space of a single scene, and she does it all perfectly.
Los Angeles is used to good effect, and for those of us can't decide if we love or hate that city, there are some wonderful cinematic moments that really capture the mood of the place. It's only after viewing the movie you look back and realise how difficult some of the action sequences featured must have been to pull off. This is action for the story's sake, not as dumbed-down eye candy, and the movie's all the better for it.
DVD Review
Yet again I find myself marking the DVD down a grade for its lack-lustre presentation. I know this is a very recent theatrical release, but even so...! There is NOTHING other than the movie on this disc - unless you count an advert for the forthcoming 'V for Vendetta' movie that plays before you can watch the movie. Given its Recommended Retail Price of £17.99 this is pretty annoying and it seems fairly obvious that there will, at some point, be another edition released with the missing featurettes and writer/director commentary that SHOULD have been on this release. There's no chapter index leaflet, no featurette, no trailer. Warner Brothers, yet again, just seem to want to take your money and run, heaping abuse upon the initial insult by forcing you to navigate through five pages of obscure language dialogues before force-feeding you a 'Don't steal a movie' video and advert for other product before you can actually get to the material you've just paid good money for. Not good enough!
Picture and Sound
The picture is anamorphic widescreen at 2.40:1 and well presented. It's a little murky in places - but then did you ever see an LA-set thriller movie that wasn't?!! Several of the shots are slightly out-of-focus, but my guess would be that this is down to problems at the time of shooting, rather than anything to do with the transfer to DVD. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack works well, if being a little uninspired and, frankly, unmemorable, but that's hardly surprising since this is not exactly a high-budget movie.
Final Analysis
Another great movie (I feel spoilt!) that's been well presented on DVD, and serves as a welcome break from the usual Hollywood 'comedic' fare. However, I'm torn between recommending you buy this, to boost the interest in this worthwhile and under-performing film, or advising you to avoid it because it's the latest example of the 'Make them buy the same thing twice' philosophy of Warner Brothers releases. The truth is you're getting very poor value for money for the disc in its current format.
The movie: 8/10 - Excellent.
The DVD: 5/10 - Quite poor really. The movie rating has pulled the overall score up to a 7, but really I feel I'm being too generous!
