Christmas Movie #20: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Well this backfired.

In my quest to find 20 truly great Christmas films, I felt I needed some variation and some left field choices. Once 20 were chosen I realised I had made a sort-of omission that any true (and slightly petty) film fan couldn't live with.

Shane Black.

For the uninitiated, Black is one of the greatest action writers of the 80s and 90s. He also has an obsession about writing his films at Christmas time. So a Christmas challenge wouldn't be complete without a work from the pen of Black. 

But what to choose? I'm not a massive fan of Black's most popular work, Lethal Weapon. I was considering Iron Man 3, but with Batman Returns already on the list, I thought best to just keep it to one Superhero. So Kiss Kiss Bang Bang seemed perfect, especially seeing as I hadn't seen it since it was released in 2005.

Well... at least it's set at Christmas. Beyond on, Christmas features very little.

Not that Kiss Kiss Bang Bang isn't a great film anyway. 

For those who haven't seen it, it stars Robert Downey Jr (at his most Robert Downey Jr-ery) as a thief who accidentally stumbles into an audition and when nearly getting the part is sent to LA to research being a detective with private dick Gay Perry (Val Kilmer, best performance in years and an excellent double act with Downey Jr). Eventually, the two end up embroiled in their own noir-ish detective narrative complete with double crosses, femme fatales and scary henchmen. 

The plot is a bit over stretched, too many characters, some of who are too one dimensional to remember when the plot twists come around. But the script is extremely witty:

Harmony: Well, for starters, she's been fucked more times than she's had a hot meal. 

Harry: Yeah, I heard about that. It was neck-and-neck and then she skipped lunch.

and full of meta references:

Harry: Don't worry, I saw Lord of the Rings. I'm not going to end this 17 times.


So not a complete loss watching this, but as it's my penultimate film in a Christmas challenge, it would have been nice to watch something that would add to my Christmas spirit.