Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Shane Black directs for the first time here. He had written Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight, and after the last failed commercially his name went missing from screens for years. This film brought him back. The screenplay draws on Brett Halliday’s 1941 novel Bodies Are Where You Find Them, yet its architecture is not a puzzle. The film splits itself into chapters and names them after Raymond Chandler titles: Trouble Is My Business, The Lady in the Lake, The Little Sister, The Simple Art of Murder, and an epilogue, Farewell, My Lovely. Harry then keeps damaging that architecture. He rewinds to things he forgot, complains aloud that his own narrating is poor, and turns to the audience in the finale. The competent one is the supporting character: the private detective Perry, played by Val Kilmer, carries the amateur played by Robert Downey Jr., insulting him the whole way. It screened out of competition at Cannes in 2005. Against a $15 million budget it took roughly 15.8 million worldwide and stalled at 4.2 million domestically. A good fit if you want the narrator failing to tell the story to matter more than who did the killing. Not for anyone who wants an investigation that proceeds cleanly, without chapter headings and rewinds cutting across it.