KISS KISS BANG BANG

I haven't seen "Lethal Weapon" in years, I never saw "The Last Boy Scout", but "The Long Kiss Goodnight" is a guilty pleasure of mine. The connecting factor in these films is that they were written by Shane Black, who was the big shit a decade ago. Since then he went a little crazy and becams reclusive. Now he's back with his first feature as a director (and writer).

I can't really go to deep into the plot of this movie, because it's really convoluted. The short version is this: Robert Downey Jr. is Harry, a hoodlum who, while running away from the cops, stumbles into a casting session for a movie. He convinces the agents that he's an actor and they fly him out to LA and hang with Val Kilmer, who plays a gay detective named Perry (gay Perry....get it?), so that he may learn about the detective business. While at a party, he meets this beautiful woman. From this point on, things get crazy and confusing, yet ultimately fun.

Harry is the narrator of the movie, and in the beginning he literally stops the film footage to clear up some details. The thing that's great, though, is that it's all very self aware. I guess most narration is, but in this movie it's just really funny. Aside from that, the dialogue is all really funny and all the actors are excellent! It's set up like a noir thriller, so a lot of the comedy is really dark (lots of people die and there are some shockingly brutal moments that get played for laughs). The plot gets all twisty-turny....in fact, I'm not even entirely sure I understand what happened. But, like the Big Lebowski, it's more about the ride than the destination.

In the end, I was very entertained. So there.