![]() Now here's a title that I let go right by me, without paying much attention. It's strangely right in my wheelhouse, but at the time of its 2005 release, my wheelhouse wasn't entirely established yet. Back then, I was mostly familiar with Robert Downey Jr. from 'Chaplin', and Val Kilmer as 'Batman' or Madmartigan from 'Willow'. I was always familiar with the title, but kinda overlooked it as a generic action movie. Now that I've seen it, it's pretty much an instant favorite. We open with our main character and narrator, Harry Lockhart, beginning a recap of how he got to a Hollywood party. After an unsuccessful robbery, and a police chase, Harry finds himself hiding in an audition. Having lost his friend during the robbery, he has a break-down which is mistaken as method acting. An openly gay private investigator, "Gay" Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer) suggests for him to participate in a real investigation in order to develop his character. Meanwhile, Harry meets aspiring actress Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), finding out that she's actually a childhood crush all grown up. While Harry and Perry find themselves in an intricate murder case, events end up entangling themselves, giving "everyman" character, Harry, a personal vendetta. Perry, Harry and Harmony end up reluctantly working together to get to the bottom of things. There's so much I appreciate about this one, and I'm happy to have found another movie to add to my rewatchable collection. For me, Harry is a potential new favourite character. Imagine Tony Stark if he had average, everyday intelligence, leaning a bit towards dumb, but still only human. He still has that sense of humor mixed with that intensity when things get serious. On the other side of things, we have Perry, who is a real asshole, but feeds Harry some of the funniest insults. The one about looking up "idiot" in the dictionary is kinda legendary. In fact, the perfect scene to illustrate these two interacting with each other. It's not enough to call it bickering back and forth, but these two really don't like each other and its perfectly clear. This is another one that follows in the footsteps of unconventional Christmas movies, where Christmas takes place in the background almost completely. It's an action comedy you could watch pretty much any time of year. The writer/director of this one is Shane Black, who we either remember very fondly for penning 'Lethal Weapon', or not so fondly for executing 'Iron Man 3' (which still isn't horrible, but definitely a weak chapter of the MCU). I'd have to say, after scrolling through his IMDb resume, this is one of his best titles for sure. It's a lot of fun, at times intense, at times laugh out loud funny, and it'll even leave you a bit squeamish without going incredibly overboard. There IS a rough torture scene here, but it's balanced out with humour and doesn't really show anything. In fact, it's kinda similar to 'Lethal Weapon's torture scene... maybe Shane Black didn't get a lot of hugs growing up? Anyway, I loved it, its a new fave for sure! 5/5
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