kiss kISS bAng banG

I had mixed feelings about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang prior to sitting down to it, but the reviews had generally been good, and a couple of friends had said they'd really enjoyed it. Wife was less sure. She used to quite like Robert Downey Jr until I bought his album The Futurist. All right, it ain't a great record, but she really hates it, and I think he's plummeted in her estimations since then!

Should I give a synopsis? It's a murder mystery, ostensibly, with Val Kilmer (in one of his finest roles) and Downey trying to track down the killer of the sister of a girl that Downey grew up with. [The girl Downey grew up with, incidentally, is played by Michelle Monaghan, who will be playing the part of Angie Gennaro in the first screen adaptation of a Denis Lehane Kenzie/Gennaro novel, Gone, Baby, Gone, due out in 2007.]

The opinion: The film fancies itself as a bit of a postmodern take on the film noir, with narration that is slightly too clever for its own good. It plays with the film-making convention too, rewinding to an earlier scene à la the work of Michael Haneke. The plot is twisty and turny and downright silly at times, but it's always full of fun. Everyone puts in good performances, and it brings quite an interesting original take to an old, tried-and-tested formula.

The scores:
Acting: 16
Story: 15
Direction: 15
Enjoyment: 18
Cerebral pleasure: 13
Total: 77