In his lively debut as a director, screenwriter Shane Black creates a movie that is defiantly smartass and too cool for the room. I couldn't have liked it more. Black was regularly bashed for making too much money churning out escapism, from Lethal Weapon to The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight. But watching him use Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang to turn the action-thriller genre on its empty head provides a special kind of pleasure. Even when the movie jumps the tracks, it's outrageous,…

As one of the best noir crime thrillers since L.A. Confidential, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is also going to make you laugh and laugh.

Story

Although it's modern day, there's a distinct Raymond Chandler-esque feel to this story about a petty thief named Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) who lucks into a movie audition and finds himself heading to Hollywood. Harry is replacing Colin Farrell as a detective in a film and to get the realism of the part, he's shown the detecting ropes by Det. Perry van…