Well maybe 3.9, the ending is a little long, but ... 3.9 stars!
This film, the directorial debut of screenwriter Shane Black is hugely fun. It's an homage to the works of Raymond Chandler (adapted from a more recent noir-ish novel), and if you like mystery, action, comedy and a high body count, this is the movie for you. The acting is superb, the script is sharp, funny and as convoluted as it should be, the photogrpahy is gorgeous, the artistic design too (nice credits!), and basically I could go on and on. But I'll simply let it suffice to say that if you have any interest in comedy/crime/mystery type films, any interest whatsoever, you really should see this. It's great - too bad it didn't get a wider release. With better marketing I think this could actually have drawn in not insignificant crowds.
Of course the one other thought it brings to mind is that it's a terrible shame that Robert Downey Jr. hasn't had a more successful career. He's a great actor - and when he really takes hold of a role he's just a tremendous success and hugely appealing.
Posted by armand at June 16, 2006 10:34 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Moviesvery interesting that you viewed it so positively. first, i agree that it was, at times, very pretty, generally well acted, and well scripted as well. that said, black still seems one dimensional to me. he all but invented the modern incarnation of the buddy film with the lethal weapon series, and this struck me as a rehash with more and more fluid sets of buddies. it was at its best, albeit its most familiar, in one on one scenes. also, the meta-cinema component seemed to me both heavyhanded and five years out of date. we've seen this before, and more cleverly, in movies like fight club. i found it interesting -- and perhaps, to be fair, it was deliberate -- how much fun black had mocking the cliches of the genre while all the while conforming to them more or less slavishly.
black can write, and he's funny, but the direction seemed fairly undistinguished to me, and i was especially annoyed by the repetitive deep color saturation techniques.
it totally held my attention, had some great eye candy for everyone, and downey jr. and kilmer were both at their comic best as black's latest pair of "buddies." but ultimately, i think it was only their chemistry and performances that took a 2-star set up and made it, at best, a 3.
Posted by: moon at June 17, 2006 06:45 PM | PERMALINKWell I like the meta-cinema thing, so I didn't see that as being out of date. And I've always been a sucker for the saturated color business. I just think it's pretty - and I'm often pleasantly distracted by pretty things and cool light. Though of course given the design of the film, that choice seemed appropriate too (I thought).
Anyway, I guess what really made it work for me was that it really did seem a great spin on the Chandler/Bogart movies - and yeah in a way a hugely Black buddy movie spin, though really to me the "buddy" business that seemed key to its success was Downey and Monaghan, not Downey and Kilmer (though all 3 were very very good). But there was more than just that addition or reformulation. I mean, well I LOVE the Big Sleep, and this seemed so much like that, completely so, but also totally new and fresh at the same time, by, in a way, being nothing remotely fresh (drawing together that Fight Club/Secret Lives of Dentists structure thing, Soderbergian lighting, Black's buddy take on crime movies, a kind of 60's wacky crime caper leitmotif in some of the art and music design) ... the melding of all that made for, for me, a fascinating crime/thriller/comedy that used every possible cliche - but in a way that made them fresh and fun. And all built around a sharp script and an incredibly winning star turn by Downey. So ... that's the way I viewed it, and why I liked it so much.
Posted by: Armand at June 17, 2006 06:58 PM | PERMALINK