Article: 'Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang' a so-so exercise in style

"All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun," as I so tirelessly quote Jean-Luc Godard. Pauline Kael refined that insight after seeing a movie poster in Italy that translated as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang."

These four words, she wrote, "are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of the movies. The appeal is what attracts us and ultimately makes us despair when we begin to understand how seldom movies are more than this."

Shane Black has dealt with lots of girls and guns in his screenplays, including the "Lethal Weapon" pictures, "The Long Kiss Goodnight" and "Last Action Hero."

Now comes his directorial debut, "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," to which he adds a comma and a ...

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