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Shane Black weekend special: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman To talk about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is to talk about a time in my life where I discovered what a good movie was. Before this film, to me a good movie was 2 Fast 2 Furious or Swordfish. I know, I know what was wrong with me, I was a child I did not know better! But Kiss Kiss Bang Bang found me at a time when I needed it most. It showed me what great actors with wry witty dialog can do to a story that has been told a million ways. It showed me that the writer can be as important as the director and it was the first time I ever noticed the name Shane Black. KIss Kiss Bang Bang is the best RDJ film that not enough people have seen. It’s perfect come back Downey blending the things that have made him a massive superstar late in life. Downey is great at playing a likable scumbag. It’s the reason he works as Iron Man and it’s the reason audiences love him. He can make a rude comment come off as poetry! The man is an artist at making things that shouldn’t work and in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang he does exactly that. The premise is simple a small time crook accidentally ends up in Hollywood and then accidentally ends up in the middle of a small conspiracy starting his childhood crush all while working with the best character in cinematic history, Gay Perry. I’ll get back to Perry in a minute but this is exactly where audience need to see Downey at the time. Some may have forgotten but for a long while there Downey was just in the worst personal space one could be in. He was addicted to drugs, always having run-ins with the law and just couldn’t get his career together. Audience saw him in some supporting roles but Black leveraged everything about him he could. His humor and his background blend together to make him believable as a hood who is too smart for his own good. But a crime story by Shane Black doesn’t work without a partner. Gay Perry is the best character you can never write again. Perry is a reflection of a time in Hollywood where you could be a sexist dick or homophobic and no one cares. Perry is called Gay Perry because that is probably something that Shane Black experienced because he is the best written character and best reflection of someone who works in LA who is defined by something that doesn’t define him. Perry is a great P.I, he is smart, he is caring and he is funny as shit. In the best ways Val Kilmer presents him as a fully formed person instead of an offensive joke which was most common in 2005. Every line is matching Downey and one-upping him. Kilmer is having fun something I haven’t seen since Top Gun and any time you rewatch this movie it feels like the whole symphony is playing when they are together on screen! Black is a writer with a specific voice. The man changed the way action movies were written and while this movie didn’t make stupid amounts of money, it should have, it gave Downey’s career they juice it needed to become Iron Man. Look I am 99% sure this film is available on Amazon Prime to stream, if you want to stream something and get horizontal with a date I can’t speak highly enough of this movie. It is incredible and is 50% of the reason I wanted to write movies!

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