In this lightweight implausible and gloriously silly movie Robert Downey Jnr. plays a petty thief who specializes in robbing toy stores and who stumbles into being an actor in a twist that only happens in movies. To train him for the role of a Private Eye, the film’s Producers assign him to work with a gay Private Eye, brilliantly played by Val Kilmer, and the research becomes worryingly real. Don’t bother too much with what is actually going on, cos if you concentrate too much on the plot which unwinds at a rapid-fire pace, you’ll miss a lot of the terrific dialogue and surprisingly tender acting on display. It’s a wonderful take on film noir with a rather standard plot full of every cliché in the book, and yet it is totally exhilarating, and one of the best comic movies of the year. Robert Downey Jnr is perfect… he mixes cynicism, self-doubt and un-pretentiousness and shows a real flair for comedy. 
If you are an infrequent moviegoer you might find the smart-aleck tone grating, but there is a lot more to this movie than just in-jokes. For all the smarts and sarcasm, it definitely has soul. That, and the chance to drool at Robert Downey Jnr, makes it unmissable.
Labels: 2005, comedy, drama, gay character, thriller
