Kiss kiss, bang bang, talking monkey, only says "ficus"

What do you get when you cross a sad sack "professional" thief trying to make his mark on Hollywood, a suave P.I. with a penchant for grammar and a low tolerance for idiots, and a wannabe small-town actress with a short fuse and a dead sister? Val Kilmer, Robert Downey Jr., and Michelle Monaghan (Gone Baby Gone) in a sharp-as-diamonds neo-noir that would've been a guilty pleasure if not for the fact that it wasn't exploitative: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Now you might be saying, Elly, how on earth could a film involving a corpse that won't stay in one place (and its subsequent frequent accidental desecration), a missing finger, gender stereotype role-reversal, man-on-man kissing, and copious use of the f-word not be exploitative? Answer: when the writer, director (who, in this case, are the same person), and actors know what they're doing.

For one thing, when I say KKBB is a neo-noir, I mean it. It is a film noir in every sense of the genre, but being a neo-noir, in the tradition of The Big Lebowski (which I believe was the first of the neos, correct me if I'm wrong) and Brick (released the same year as KKBB), the humour is blacker than black. That's not to say that there aren't any funny moments that aren't awkward, not with this script - at the beginning of the film, Downey Jr.'s character answers a question about what he does for a living with a deadpan, "I'm retired. I invented dice as a kid" - but the majority of the jokes are based on the fact that, when faced with such shocking and "how the HELL did I wind up here???" situations, there's nothing else to do but laugh. As a noir, the writer borrows heavily from Raymond Chandler to brilliant effect, resulting in the film being divided up into day-long chapters - each with a title referencing a Chandler novel - and Downey Jr.'s genius fourth-wall narration.

Let's talk about the characters. As a thief/actor from the East coast, Downey Jr.'s Harry is a fish out of water in the bizarre alternate universe that is L.A., and he plays that for all the bewilderment and sympathy it's worth, with great results. I'm so glad that Downey got back on his feet - he's made everyone notice in the last few years that the industry really was worse off without him. Val Kilmer's private detective to the acting set, Gay Perry (who is, yes, gay), defies every conventional screen portrayal of the homosexual by being so confident in both his self and his job that his sexual orientation is only part of the story inasmuch as the role it plays in his personality (and his nickname). Cool, suave, smart, and very good at his job, Perry has zero tolerance for both bad grammar and idiots - much to Harry's detriment. On top of that, he's the perfect picture of male petulance - not immature, not effete, not snobbish, just...petulant. To unbelievable comic effect. The relationship born of necessity between Harry and Perry, though peppered with Perry's hilarious dialogue, never feels put on or false. This has as much to do with the writing as with the first-rate pair of actors.

Especially fascinating is Michelle Monaghan's Harmony, a woman who, as a child, watch her father sexually abuse her younger sister, and escaped first into old-school detective novels and second to L.A., hoping to make it big so that she could help her sister, waiting for the big break that never came. In a significant and timely gender role reversal, Harmony has no respect for her body. She is willing to put out for the least of reasons , and, when she mistakenly thinks Harry has groped her, quickly tempers her initial outrage by brushing it off as normal, resulting in a shocked and disbelieving lecture from Harry, who recognizes the tragedy of her having come to see herself in this way. Yes, in this film, it's the woman who is unashamedly and destructively promiscuous, but instead of condemning her for a slut, the writer is concerned with just how horrific and tragic the self-image (and abuse) that spawned this behaviour is. Much later in the film, Perry encounters the father, now elderly, bed-ridden, and completely unrepentant, and hits him as retribution for him having abused his young daughter, who was equally defenseless. It is a very powerful scene. The whole story is very careful, compassionate, and though-provoking. The whole film, in many ways, plays as a tragedy, and that is how such events as the unfortunate traveling corpse are kept from being exploitative.

Oh, and the epilogue is, forgive me for using this word so much in one post....brilliant.

If you want something clever, smart, and very, very funny, and don't mind the fact that swearing and nudity, though not exploitative, are part of the package, I can't think of a more successful movie than Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.