Variety
Perhaps too clever for its own good and so confusingly dense one is tempted to stop trying to follow the plot and just go along for the ride.
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Before they worked together on Marvel’s Iron Man 3, writer-director Shane Black and Robert Downey Jr. made this trippy cult classic crime-comedy about a thief (Downey Jr.) posing as an actor who winds up in the middle of a murder investigation alongside a private eye (Val Kilmer) and an actress in employment limbo (Michelle Monaghan).
Before this, his directorial debut, Shane Black was a screenwriting wunderkind of the 1980s, penning the wildly successful Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2 and reputedly most-uses-of-the-f-word-in-history flick The Last Boy Scout (as well as a memorable acting turn in Predator). By the time of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Black had been largely invisible for nearly a decade since writing 1996's The Long Kiss Goodnight, but showed he'd lost none of his snarky wit - from the title onwards, which riffs on film critic extraordinaire Pauline Kael.
Less2005Rating: MA15+, Strong violence, strong coarse language and sexual reference98 minsUSA
ActionComedy
- Director:
- Shane Black (feature debut)
- Writer:
- Shane Black
- Cast:
- Robert Downey JrVal KilmerMichelle MonaghanCorbin BernsenDash MihokLarry MillerRockmond Dunbar
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang | Reviews
86%183 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® Score
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Time Out
An ultra-knowing exercise in genre deconstruction, and something of a charmer to boot.
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The Guardian
A very writerly film, incessantly displaying a preoccupation with its own storytelling structure and cheekily blowing the lid off other movies' tropes and wiles.
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Roger Ebert
Contains a lot of comedy and invention, but doesn't much benefit from its clever style.
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Empire Magazine
Bold and breathless, this hilarious, know-it-all comedy-thriller will have you reliving its ironic spoils for days, but you'll still be hard-pressed to nail the actual story.
Full reviewKiss Kiss Bang Bang | Release Details
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is available to stream in Australia now on Stan and Netflix and Google Play and Apple TV and Prime Video Store and Paramount+.