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movie review - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tokyo, 2006.10.02

This is an irritating movie with an irritating lead. It's about an obnoxious young man (played by a forty-year-old actor) who rediscovers an old high-school flame (played by a twenty-eight-year-old) through a series of unlikely events. He gets drawn into a violent criminal sub-culture after lying his way into a movie cast after fleeing the police during a failed break-in. Honestly this story is such a mess that even telling it in a linear fashion would become boring. Not a lot of what follows makes any sense, and the lead actor is at turns engaging and repulsive - he executes someone at one point. The tone doesn't really ever settle down, with things like the rape of one's own daughter or the aforementioned execution being at once serious and played for laughs.

Not recommended.

rand()m quote

It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

—Anne Frank