Sunday, December 21, 2014

Kiss kiss fuck yes

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is one of those movies that I always meant to see and never got around to. Finally last week it was one of the movies on my sister's movie advent calendar and we sat down to watch it on our typical Tuesday family hangout.

The film is an odd combination of perfect polish and shoddy construction - I think at least part of the shoddiness is intentional to help undermine the unreliable narrator but there's something about the production that was nonetheless visually revolting for me. But, fortunately, that was the only thing about the movie that I didn't like.

Val Kilmer was hilarious and stole every scene he was in. Robert Downey Jr. played an affable, hateable, loveable idiot and I thought he was great. The story is tremendously goofy and played for laughs while still having a good heart and some decent drama.

I think it was the over-the-topness that I really appreciated the most. The good lines were SO good, the bad pulp drama was SO bad, LA was SO, SO, SO LA that you can practically smell the car exhaust and hear the pages of unfinished screenplays rattling through every scene.

No wait, my favorite thing was the way that Robert Downey Jr. was getting his ass kicked constantly. That was the best thing about the movie. It was great to see a "hero" character who lost every single physical confrontation and was not above complaining about it. The fact that even RDJ's injuries were over-the-top was just a nice garnish on a nice little story.

Cheers,
     - Alli

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