Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Directed by Shane Black
A petty thief posing as an actor is brought to Los Angeles for an unlikely audition and finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation along with his high school dream girl and a detective who's been training him for his upcoming role...
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11 films that influenced Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
What critics say influenced Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Even Raymond Chandler - to whom Mr. Black owes more than a little inspiration - once noted that he didn't know who committed one of the murders in "The Big Sleep".
When Shane Black wrote the screenplay for 1996’s The Long Kiss Goodnight , he broke his own record as the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood.
He wrote "Lethal Weapon," "The Last Boy Scout," "Last Action Hero" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight," huge, noisy films, all of them, with ludicrous plots and over-the-top action sequences.
Back from exile after the twin catastrophes of The Last Action Hero and The Long Kiss Goodnight torpedoed his high-flying career, Black's directorial debut is a madcap noir whose Byzantine plot about La-La Land murder and deceit, employment of traditional crime story tropes (doppelgangers, show biz sleazeballs, hit men, and whores), and homage-heavy chapter titles all reveal its Raymond Chandler roots.
Shane Black has dealt with lots of girls and guns in his screenplays, including the first, second and fourth " Lethal Weapon " pictures, " The Long Kiss Goodnight " and "The Last Action Hero."
Not just Lethal Weapon but The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight.
But Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is only Black's second produced screenplay since 1996's The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Maybe Black was trying too hard to regain the panache of his screenplay for "Lethal Weapon," or a case of living up to his working title, "You'll Never Die in This Town Again," or Brett Halliday's novel "Bodies Are Where You find Them" from which he adapted it but, from the start we're subjected to Robert Downey Jr.'s narration in a mix of frenzied free thought and Raymond Chandler channeling.
Black, who wrote the original "Lethal Weapon," walks that line, and it's not an easy line.
Anyway, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a first-time directorial effort by Shane Black, who is nevertheless no stranger to humorous action movies, having written "Lethal Weapon," "Last Action Hero," and "The Last Boy Scout."
Shane Black may be known for writing the Lethal Weapon movies, but he takes his buddy-cop idea to a new dimension.
And Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, wrote Shane "Lethal Weapon" Black, a writer turned writer-director who wanted to sum up everything he has learned about wiseacre buddy comedies and trigger-happy and bloody detective movies.
Then, just as suddenly as he had burst onto the scene (with the Lethal Weapon screenplay), he dropped off the industry radar.
Anyway, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a first-time directorial effort by Shane Black, who is nevertheless no stranger to humorous action movies, having written "Lethal Weapon," "Last Action Hero," and "The Last Boy Scout."
He wrote "Lethal Weapon," "The Last Boy Scout," "Last Action Hero" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight," huge, noisy films, all of them, with ludicrous plots and over-the-top action sequences.
Not just Lethal Weapon but The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight.
In the early '90s, Black was the highest-paid writer in Hollywood, thanks to Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Lethal Weapon screenwriter Shane Black made his name as the go-to guy for witty, action-packed thrillers, with films such as The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight.
The wunderkind, who broke the million-dollar script ceiling and stamped screenwriters' names into the public consciousness with such efforts "Lethal Weapon" and "The Last Boy Scout," wrote and directed this highly original postmodern L.A. noir.
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But a great director might have found a way to turn this trivial celebration of genre into a masterpiece (a great director, not to put too fine a point, might have made this a 21st Century American Band of Outsiders .
The opening credits evoke the Saul Bass titles from films like Anatomy of a Murder .
Perry's sarcasm switch is permanently stuck on, making him a great movie character ala Tarantino's Vincent Vega in "Pulp Fiction."
More antic than ''Get Shorty" and less brutally artful than ''Pulp Fiction," ''Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" lacks the lasting impact of either movie, and it continually tiptoes on the edge of smarm.
If the plot that unfolds is a bit more convoluted than your average action flick, it’s because Black is, in part, going for Double Indemnity, not Lethal Weapon 5.
Like Fred MacMurray in "Double Indemnity": "Baby" this and "baby" that.
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The comedic version of David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a Hollywood-fed pulp mystery from late '80s, early '90s screenwriting king Shane Black ("Lethal Weapon," "The Last Boy Scout"), who makes his directorial debut by spewing whatever comic bile has been building up in his brain since his glory days.
Anyway, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is a first-time directorial effort by Shane Black, who is nevertheless no stranger to humorous action movies, having written "Lethal Weapon," "Last Action Hero," and "The Last Boy Scout."
He wrote "Lethal Weapon," "The Last Boy Scout," "Last Action Hero" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight," huge, noisy films, all of them, with ludicrous plots and over-the-top action sequences.
The same kind of movie as Doug Liman's Mr. and Mrs. Smith but more so, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang marks the hyphenate debut of star screenwriter Shane Black, and it's the kind of movie his Last Action Hero would have been had they aimed it at adults (and cast actors).
Black has written many action movies - among them the Lethal Weapon series - and he co-wrote Last Action Hero, a self-conscious, self-referential work about a movie star that confounded its audience.
After all but defining the action-buddy-comedy genre with "Lethal Weapon" and the underappreciated "The Last Boy Scout", Mr. Black became Hollywood's highest paid writer for the ill-fated "Last Action Hero" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight".
He's had success on varying levels ever since, from the misunderstood Last Action Hero to the entertaining but underappreciated The Long Kiss Goodnight.