I don't think Shane Black is a genius, but he is Hollywood's biggest smart-ass...thank God

I'm sure Shane Black loves Hollywood. He was only mega-producer Joel Silver's golden boy of the late 80's/early 90's with a string of writing credits that goes a little something like this: Lethal Weapon (87, for which he sold when he was only 22 and earned $250,000), Lethal Weapon 2 (89), The Last Boy Scout (91), Last Action Hero (93, we'll let this one slide), The Long Kiss Goodnight (96, for which he earned a whopping 4 mil) and now Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (05) -- the most un-Hollywood Hollywood film you are likely to ever see. First off, Shane Black is not a director -- he's a writer. A damn good one too. If you don't think so, you go try to write a relentlessly commercial film like The Last Boy Scout and see how easy it is. They must not have been able to find a director with enough balls to even understand the concept of Kiss Kiss let alone one who was even willing to film the thing; so they got Black himself. The plot is too ridiculous to transcribe, but this type of film isn't about plot. Imagine a buddy-buddy cop film that features a highly literate petty thief with a heart of gold who stumbles into an acting session while he's being chased by the police for breaking into a toy store to steal a Christmas present for his kid (whom he's talking to the whole time on a cell phone while he's trying to find the right item) and then gets mistaken for 'the next Brando' just because he nails the part, but only because the part happens to be a cop who feels guilty over his partner being shot, a coincidental bit of business being as how the theif-turned-would-be-actor's own partner was just shot moments before in an alley-way by a malicious do-gooder tenant who hears the alarm go off when they run from the toy store...with me so far? This is just the first 5 minutes. There's too much to go into, but trust me -- this is the best film you've never seen in the past 5 years. Rent it, buy it, netflix it, whatever...just SEE IT! Oh yeah, and by the way, a good friend of mine (Pop View) went to school with Black. He told me that he's every bit as withdrawn and morose as this little character-driven action flick would pretend he is. A smart guy like Black who helped define the modern buddy-cop action genre obviously has wrestled with a lot of his own demons in the process. Selling out...blah, blah. With this film, you get the feeling for Black that it's pay-back time. Kiss Kiss goes to great lengths to dive head first into the shallow waters of the cool yet slimy West Coast mentality. You can tell Black still holds some bit of love for the town that made him a name, or that maybe he's just finally over it.

"I'd like to be the sort of raconteur who rattles off quips and bon mots in the moment, but I'm not going to hit you with the dazzler. Most people just say nothing all of the time."
- Shane Black

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
5 out of 5 stars

watch this

I think I liked it better the first time


Han, Greedo and master directors Ford and Kurosawa
I don't know know why this shocks me but I was watching the John Ford film, Cheyenne Autumn (64) and I came across a scene that was missing for many years from prints of the film that had been included here on DVD for the first time. An out of place light-comedy episode that takes place in Dodge City where James Stewart as Wyatt Earp shoots Ken Curtis' murderous cowpoke in the foot over a game of cards identical to Han Solo's "shooting first" scene in Star Wars. Right down to the way Stewart leans back in his chair against the wall and shoots him nonchalantly from his side pocket. I mean, come on! I've heard of borrowing before or poetic license but this is ridiculous. The Star Wars "influences" move well beyond the few and coincidental.

Everyone knows the Kurosawa scenes, especially since Lucas himself has admitted to Hidden Fortress (58) being a direct influence: two bumbling friends help a roguish hero/General rescue a brave princess from captivity. More specific still, Lucas includes a direct homage to Kurosawa in the scene in which Ben (Obi-Wan Kenobi) defends Luke in the Mos Eisley cantina. The shot of the ruffian’s arm on the floor, severed by Ben’s blade, is a reference to a similarly severed arm, filmed the same exact way, in Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (61). Even Ford’s classic western, The Searchers (56) makes it's way into the saga. Specifically, the scene in which Luke approaches the burned-out farm and finds his aunt and uncle murdered is copied verbatim from Ford’s film, in which the young hero also returns to his family’s farm to find the buildings burned and his aunt and uncle murdered. Like Luke, the hero of The Searchers is drawn into a relationship with a relentless father figure, bent on evil. And like Darth Vader, the father figure in The Searchers (played unforgettably by John Wayne) experiences a last-second moral regeneration.

There's even an obscure British film, Sword of Sherwood Forest (60) directed by Hammer icon Terence Fisher that features Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin himself from Star Wars) as the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham having an identical conversation to a character as he does in Star Wars when he tricks Princess Leia into giving him the location of the rebel base. Shot for shot. I couldn't make this stuff up. Does that ruin the importance or greatness of the original (and still the best) Star Wars? I don't think so. But it does make me re-think the "genius" of the man behind the saga. Not to mention the fact, isn't it weird that some of these scenes and films (like Sword of Sherwood Forest) have just gone "missing" over the years? Hmmmm...I believe it was that arch-flake himself, Bono (of U2 fame) who once sang: "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief, all kill their inspiration and sing about their grief."

George, you couldn't have said it better yourself.