Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Summary

Bodies pile up and a mystery unfolds as a hapless New York thief is swept into the L.A. scene and paired with a suave detective.

Director

Shane Black

Downey Factor

Very high. He plays the lead and the narrator.

Character

Harry Lockhart, a disaster-prone thief trying to get his big break as an actor.

Looks

Disheveled, cute, fit.

Performance

Highly amusing.

Love & Sex

Courts Michelle Monaghan, shares a comic makeout session with Val Kilmer.

Dies, Gay or Villain

No, no, no.

Cast

Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen

Connection

Michelle Monaghan in Due Date.

Shane Black's Iron Man 3.

Judie Aronson in Weird Science.

RDJ Says

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is I think in some ways is the best film I've ever done, would up being a calling card. It came out and it bombed but Jon Favreau saw it and thought 'this guy could do an action movie.' ... I'd never played a character who was so overtly not intelligent but lovable, and I think it was very freeing for me. Harry Lockhart, he's kind of a dummy … I just found it so delightful staying up all night with Val Kilmer shooting these ridiculous scenes about these two oddballs. [Val is] a really sophisticated artist and I have nothing but fond memories of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang … I have a sense of destiny that you are led to do the things you are supposed to do. And it turns out this film was one of them ... Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is one of my favorites, if not my favorite movie that I have ever done ... [The film that defines my thirties is] Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, is probably the part I played that is most like myself, even though he's a thief on the run from the cops posing as a private investigator in Los Angeles, who is also posing as an actor ... [This is] the first movie I've done in like 70 tries that works from beginning to end and is innovative and fun to do ... It was a practically perfect script, and we played with it a little bit and made some improvements. I liked the way it felt. My energy was even. Val and I synced nicely, and Shane did a great job directing ... It was entirely shot at night. We were pretty giddy most of the time. I saw it last week by chance, and had a flood of fond memories. On the first day of shooting, Val Kilmer (genius) almost choked to death on a piece of catering chicken right before we shot the first scene of the movie. His eyes were still watering until we got to his close up ... It was a movie that didn't know how to find its audience. It wasn't the audience's or the studio's fault. The movie was [a feathered fish]. That's what they called it ... [My wife] was reading this script and laughing her head off, and I said, "What's so funny?" and she said, "This script by Shane Black." When she tries to explain what's funny, it's so strange I just don't get it. But it's Shane Black, so now I'm interested ... I would like to say Shane and I were casualties of the "military industrial complex" of Hollywood. But I tell people, sometimes you have to survive these things and then it makes sense later. Which is sort of what happens in the movie. It all makes sense later ... I'd see [Shane Black] in Rock n' Roll Ralph's and we'd look at each other and say, "Hey, man." It was like 10 years away from the last thing we did right, but we'd say, "Hey, we should do something together," "Oh yeah, we should," and then off we'd go ... Shane's voice is different than any other. It's not like the things we've been fed [in movies] all these years. Shane has had a lot of time and success and disappointments, and it shows in the script ... I tend to play people who are too smart for their own good. [But] Harry is stupid about everything. It doesn't matter his heart's in the right place because everything he does to help, if he had thought it through, he would realize he couldn't have done it worse. But in the end, he's okay. He's even got a real job that he can show up for, and the romance thing, well, they've got as good a shot as any ... You don't have to look too far for parallels [between me and the character]. He's really this post-Gen-X dummy, hellbent on figuring out one thing in the maelstrom of things he doesn't really understand—who escapes from New York, almost gets himself killed, and in the end, might have a shot at a cool girl ... Harry Lockhart explains the influx to Hollywood of people who want to be [famous] overnight, who don't want to live the life, they just want the Christmas present ... When we were shooting night after night in L.A. a film about L.A. that is funny, dark and smart, and I'm thinking, "What could be a bigger kiss of death?" But people seem to be responding to it ... It's similar in tone to films like Chinatown. There's really that sense of drama with just a touch of lightness along the way. We're having a really good time ... In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang [I wear] a lot of James Perse and Helmut Lang, plus Nike Shocks with lifts in them so I didn't look 15 inches shorter than Val.

Time & Place

Present day (2005) Los Angeles, except for brief scenes in Indiana and New York.

Availability

Released in theaters 21 October 2005. On DVD in regions 1, 2, and 4; also on Blu-Ray.

DVD Detail

Robert Downey Jr does commentary along with Val Kilmer and Shane Black. Available on the region 1 DVD, only on Blu-Ray in region 2.

Foreign Titles

Argentina / Mexico: Entre Besos y Tiros (Between Kisses and Shots)
Brazil: Beijos e Tiros (Kisses and Shots)
Bulgaria: Kisses with Unexpected End (English translation)
Canada (French): Baisers fumants (Smoking Kisses)
Greece: Filia kai sfaires (Kisses and Bullets)
Romania: Lubire si Gloante (Love and Bullets)

Rotten Tomatoes

83% Fresh | 147 Reviews

Critical View

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Robert Downey Jr., at his playfully snarky best, narrates the film ... Downey and Kilmer keep you hanging on and laughing uproariously. You might think two masters of the quirky would be too much for a single movie. But they light up this one.

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: [Downey and Monaghan's] comic rhythms are in perfect synch. At times, it seems as if they're improvising, inspiring and topping each other.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I've seen the movie twice, foolishly thinking I might understand it better the second time. Understanding it is not the point. The dialogue exists not to explain anything or advance the story. It exists entirely in order to be dialogue. The dialogue, and just about everything else in the movie, is there for its own sake.

Does It Hold Up

I'll defend this movie to the death. When I first wrote this page, one of my reasons to see it was "If you're a longtime RDJ fan, you've been waiting for a movie like this." It's not perfect and some of its online ratings are skewed a lot lower than they should be by people complaining about how much the profanity is in it. I'm guessing these folks probably turned it off before it got to the "to all you good people in the Midwest, sorry we said 'fuck' so much" part.

2 Reasons to See It

1. The play between Kilmer and Downey is electric.
2. If you care enough about watching Robert Downey Jr movies to read the film guide and you haven't seen this movie, stop reading right now, bookmark the site for later, and immediately go watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Overall

A convoluted plot takes a backseat to the fun, clever, self-aware comedy that's so amusing you won't even care that you can't explain what the movie is about. A must-see.

If You Like It

You might also like Sherlock Holmes (2009), Iron Man 3 (2013)

Photos

Video