The neo-noir genre consists primarily of films produced and set in the modern day which still follow the basic narrative and/or cinematic conventions of 1940s and 1950s film noir (Naremore 298). These types of films also follow detective-like characters investigating crimes and infiltrating the seedy underbelly of various criminal underworlds, but they also carry an undercurrent of modern cultural attitudes and perspectives. In the case of 2005's noir comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the characters fit into fairly standard noir archetypes, while bringing a postmodern malaise and self-aware knowledge of noir tropes to the proceedings. This results in a terrifically funny and cutting example of neo-noir, acknowledging the conventions of the genre while subverting them in entertaining ways.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang follows the story of Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey, Jr.), whose character is just as flawed and morally grey as a Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, but lacking in the same kind of confident resourcefulness that these archetypal noir detectives had at their disposal. Instead, the main character is not a detective, but a down-and-out criminal who manages to con his way to Hollywood as the prospective star of a new movie. At the same time, he fits many noir archetypes (noirchetypes?) perfectly - he is dogged and determined to solve the case and save the girl as any Raymond Chandler character. However, where the subversion of conventions lie in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is that Harry Lockhart is cowardly, incompetent, and bumbling - he makes mistakes, stumbles upon clues entirely through rampant coincidence, and often completely miscalculates his own strength and abilities. He is only a detective because he tells Haromony that he is, with the ulterior motive of getting to know her/sleep with her. Naremore argues that Harry is a very archetypal character for neo-noir in that noir's main characters "are very often social outsiders or criminals" (298), and that the genre's very nature is an affront to the niceties of the Midwest, where seedy crime is looked down upon frequently. This is made clear at the end of the film, when Harry apologizes to people in the Midwest for "saying 'fuck' so much"; this sets noir (and neo-noir) as a genre firmly belonging to the fast pace and morally grey activities of coastal cities like LA and New York (Naremore 298). In essence, Harry's character is a nod to the hard-boiled detectives of old by stripping them of their skill and coolness, leaving just the criminality and raw resourcefulness.
It is fitting to state that, in this neo-noir, the detective character is split into two characters - one is Harry, the other is his advisor Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) who is a real detective. As opposed to the masculine tough guys of 1940s noir, Perry is flamboyantly gay, snarky, and neurotic. Perry is competent where Harry is bumbling; as a real private detective, he takes Harry on stakeouts, actually digs up leads and legitimately talks to clients. However, what he lacks is the personal connection to the case and the charisma to think outside the box that Harry brings to the table. Often, early in the film, he dismisses Harry's intuitions and instincts as garbage and incompetence - "Look up the word 'idiot' in the dictionary, you know what you'll find?The definition of the word 'idiot,' which you fucking are!". Over time, however, Harry and Perry learn to work as a team, and their combined abilities form the ideal noir detective - an amalgam of skilled experience and courageous intuition that leads them to solve the case(s) involved in the film.
The story of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang follows the typical noir convention of having the detective be involved in two cases, which are then later found out to be the same case. In one scene, Harry even points out this convention - which turns out to be true, cementing his status as being fully aware that he is in a neo-noir movie. First, he is tasked to investigate the death of Harmony's sister Jenna; at the same time, Perry is hired to tail Dexter's daughter, Veronica, who mysteriously turns up dead. Both of these cases turn out to be the same case, as it turns out that Jenna was impersonating Veronica in order to have a father figure and get closer to the "real" Jonny Gossamer. By adhering to classic noir tropes while still pointing them out, the film has a postmodern awareness of its genre that makes it decidedly a neo-noir piece.
In many ways, filmic language is used to demonstrate Harry's growth into the prototypical noir detective-hero; he is his same bumbling, incompetent self until the climax of the film, in which he and Perry are shot with the same bullet. Until this point, Harry follows Perry's lead on the majority of the case, but with Perry apparently dead (Harry's bullet being slowed down by a Jonny Gossamer book, another visual metaphor for the conventions of noir protecting him), Harry literally rises from this transformative event and suddenly becomes a swift master gunman, operating entirely on instinct and not missing a bullet. In this moment, he fully inherits his role as the hero and becomes, as Corbin Bernsen's character croaks, "Captain Fucking Magic." In this way, his own courage is combined with Gay Perry's skill and cunning, Perry's metaphorical death being necessary to create the full noir detective in a single body - namely Harry. While this is a very symbolic way of treating the character and the subject matter, it shows the tendency in neo-noir of having characters be even more flawed than their noir counterparts, and needing transformative events in order to change their outlook.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is its self-aware sending up of noir tropes and cliches. The most important cinematic device by which this is accomplished is the self-aware narration that Harry gives to the audience. Often, a noir detective's monologue is delivered as written in a letter or recorded for someone in the future to peruse (e.g. Double Indemnity), or simply their inner monologue. However, Harry's monologue is presented directly to us - "That's me there. My name's Harry Lockhart, I'll be your narrator" - allowing us to understand that we will be exploring the tropes of noir itself through a character who is fully aware that he is in a noir story. There are many instances where he will, in fact, stop the movie (the film seems to come to a stop in a literal sense, with frame lines and all) to berate himself over how poor a narrator he is, and to backtrack in order to get backstory on essential things (Harmony's past, etc.). At other times, he begrudgingly acknowledges that he will be a poor, unreliable narrator and tells the audience to deal with it - "I don't see another goddamn narrator, so pipe down."
These things directly play with the notion of narrators in noir films, updating them with a sheen of self-awareness that allows for comedic juxtaposition - Harry is just bad at telling stories, in much the same way as modern vernacular, unlike staid, writerly 1940s noir dialogue, is full of stammers and backtracks - early on, they even make fun of the confident detective uttering snarky remarks by having Harry mishear him ("A talking monkey?"). At the same time, writer/director Shane Black manages to find unique rhythms and wonderful metaphors that fit in directly with the noir style of speech, as evidenced by Perry's snark and Harry's often hamfisted attempts at metaphor.
The primary commentary on noir films and the genre itself is presented through the film's presentation of reality as being much harsher and less romantic than as presented in old-school noir. Both Harry and Harmony have a connection through the serialized dime-store crime novels of Jonny Gossamer, a typical hard-boiled detective character to whom both Harmony and her sister Jenna deeply identify. This leads to one of the cases Harry and Perry must work on, as Jenna follows Jonny Gossamer to Hollywood, believing it to be as glitzy and glamorous as depicted in the Gossamer books she read as a kid. However, it turns out to then lead to betrayal and death, as Jenna literally kills herself over how disappointing the real LA is. This is a direct reference to the romanticism of noir films and books; the hero is depicted as always winning and being begrudgingly a good man, while the man who played Gossamer in the world of the film (Harlan Dexter) is the villain of this film.
As in neo-noir, these kinds of post-modern commentaries on the original noir genre and how it fits into modern society are present in this film, as the 21st century is shown to be a much different place than the time of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang demonstrates the hero as a split between a competent but distant detective and a bumbling but personally connected and driven criminal, combining them at the end to form the classic noir protagonist. Narrative noir devices such as protagonist narration and multiple cases turning out to be the same case are used to great effect to send up the expectations that the film's audience has, being fully versed in noir tropes. By subverting the concept of the hard-boiled detective and the self-serious tone of early noir, neo-noir inserts those plots into a modern context by adding a layer of irony. In the case of Harry Lockhart, the protagonist of the film knows he is in a film, and uses this to his advantage to manipulate the audience as he sees fit, winking to what we expect from noir films while changing their outcome entirely.
Works Cited
Black, Shane (dir.) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Perf. Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle
Monaghan. Warner Bros, Pictures, 2005. Film.
Naremore, James. More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. University of California Press,
2008. Print.
