Hey, did you see the cool trailer for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang?

No neither did I. Nor did I see any print, TV or web ads for the thing. The one thing I did see was the movie, and I can't help but lament the fact that studios will break the bank on pushing a piece of (alleged) dreck like Aeon Flux, while highly entertaining popcorn movies like Kiss Kiss are allowed to lapse into obscurity.

Briefly, the film is a darkly comic murder mystery starring Robert Downey Jr. as a petty thief-cum-actor who gets mixed up in a murder plot alongside a homeosexual detective called Gay Perry (Val Kilmer.) To my everlasting chagrin, I didn't get the "Gay Perry" pun until it was spelled out to me in reviews I read after seeing the movie. The movie serves as both a homage to hard boiled noir and a pastiche/gentle parody of the kind of action films that made its writer director Shane Black (scribe of Lethal Weapon, Last Action Hero, etc.) a rich man.

I saw this movie with Suzy, who enjoyed it immensely, but was also surprised by the lack of exposure it received. She wondered if people would like the movie had it been better marketed. I thought the film was hilarious, but I did wonder if perhaps the studio thought audiences would be put off by the film's tongue in cheek style.

And generally I would be too (as indeed, was the maddeningly inconsistent Roger Ebert); I'm not always a fan of movies that try to get away with facile plotting and cliches by drawing attention to them. ("Wow, that stuff normally only happens in movies!") But with Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, I think the style arises naturally from the main character/narrator. This is someone who for various reasons has grown to distrust both the Hollywood scene, and by extension, films in general. Several characters in the movie have strange relationships with and the promise of glamour and danger portrayed in pulp crime novels. So it feels quiet natural for Robert Downey Jr's character to make ironic comments as the story progresses. Also, Robert Downey makes the character- who manages to be a monumental fuck-up in whatever he turns his hand to: thievery, private dickery, narration- genuinely likable and vulnerable. More than any of his "straight" action pictures Shane Black has invested in the characters, and once the characters work, you can lay on as much postmodern self-mocking whipped cream as you like.

Also, some of the dialogue is truly terrific and I'm a sucker for movies that make you want to recount the good lines in the pub afterwards. Which I did.

Then again, I thought "Last Action Hero" was quite funny (in parts) so what do I know?