Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Val Kilmer and Robert Downey jnr hit the target dead centre.

(Herald rating * * * *)

The operative phrase is probably "too clever for it's own good" as this film attempts to juggle being an odd-buddy comedy, Hollywood satire, and spoof LA noir.

It also shares its name with a collection by legendary film critic Pauline Kael, who decried the sort of empty action spectacle that director-writer Black - formerly a highly paid young gun scriptwriter of Lethal Weapon and the like - specialised in.

Too bad - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a laugh riot. Yes, it's a movie kind of movie, having fun with the conventions of the various genres it's cooking up, its oven set somewhere between "hardboiled" and "high irony". And it's so dialogue driven between the leading trio of Downey, Kilmer and Monaghan - all in terrific wisecracking form - that it's easy to lose sight of the plot, keep track of its logic, or keep count of the bodies.

But KKBB still pulls it off in a style that's boldly self-conscious. As New York-thief-turned-wannabe-LA-actor Harry Lockhart, Downey is also the narrator, occasionally rewinding proceedings to fill some in forgotten detail and, at the end, addressing the audience directly.

He has a fine foil in Kilmer as "Gay" Perry, a private-investigator-to-the-stars who starts out to be Lockhart's tough-guy acting coach. The pair soon find themselves doing some real detective work on a case which comes to involve actress-waitress-whatever Harmony (Monaghan), who just so happens to be Harry's childhood sweetheart from their innocent days growing up in the Midwest.

There's a dark, slightly sadistic edge to Black's story which can cause some of those laughs to catch in the throat - it's right up there with Weekend at Bernie's on indignities suffered by the deceased. Best Russian roulette scene since The Deer Hunter too. But the living don't exactly emerge unscathed either - especially Harry, who loses the same finger more than once and later suffers an electrical test of his testicular fortitude.

It can rather fry the brain as well with its sheer talkiness. But it's the best laugh at Hollywood's expense in quite some time.

CAST: Robert Downey jnr, Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan
RATING R16 (violence, offensive language, nudity)
DIRECTOR: Shane Black
RUNNING TIME: 103 mins

SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley