Detective Fiction + Robert Downey Jr. = "Sarcasm Noir"

Over the past 2 weeks, Bart has guided us on an enlightened journey through the contours and depths of not simply the film genre of "noir" itself, but also the parameters encompassed within the term "genre" itself.

Bart did a fantastic job conveying the structures of film noir, and utilized a fitting array of readings that discussed film noir in the context of genre itself. I think must everyone would agree he had an extremely tight grasp over the subject, and knew his noir inside and out. The discussions were engaging, and various prominent themes ran their course throughout the 2 weeks.
That said... I was bored to tears the entire time. Film noir simply doesn't butter my bread, or at least the old school 1940's black and white, light and dark, smooth-talking, cigarette-gulping, mysteriously murderous members of the genre which occupied much of our viewing experience, as it should. After all, that is true film noir. The Post WWII, glass half-empty Hollywood that bottled intrigue and never let its audience get too happy.
But I just can't handle it. The dialogue is too perfect, the acting too over-the-top. I certainly appreciate the artistic camera shots and the ability to parlay a genre into a new language with which to speak through the lens, but really, once you've seen one of those guys, you've somewhat seen them all. I think this all stems from the fact that I watched the "Naked Gun" Trilogy at least 75 times a piece as a child, and thus have an appreciation for noir through parody more than anything else.
On the genre's last day of class time, and therefore its last opportunity to win me over, we got to see "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." It almost pulled it off.
Unlike "Naked Gun," this film is more a celebration of the noir genre than a parody of it. Certainly some aspects are poked fun of (such as the end scene in the hospital when we miraculously find all the good characters to be alive, along with Abraham Lincoln among others), but this movie for the most part follows a fairly direct detective/noir path, with a certain 21st Century twist on movie making. For one, the narrator, and main character, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is completely self-aware throughout the film. Most noir films had some narration, sometimes in the form of flashbacks, but what makes Lockhart different is that instead of merely narrating, he is more having a conversation directly with the audience, complete with some stumbling, rewinding, and self-effacing humor. In this sense, he really draws the audience into the story, as he is not just speaking as much as he is speaking to YOU.
The film also utilizes a series of detective novels, which are both key to the story itself and serve in their style as part of the direction of the overall plot layout. This is obvious to the audience because of the inherent language present within the noir genre. The audience knows what to expect, and with each new reference to the novel series and its thematic structure, the audience understands the need to apply those rules to the overall film itself. In his "Questions of Genre," Steve Neale explains the importance of genre's expectations for the audience: “genres do not consist only of films; they consist also, and equally, of specific systems of expectation and hypothesis which spectators bring with them to the cinema, and which interact with films themselves during the course of the viewing process. These systems provide spectators with means of recognition and understanding. They help render films, and the elements within them, intelligible and therefore explicable"(46).
This usage of real books is coupled with the chapters within the movie being named after real detective novels from Raymond Chandler, straight out of the pulp fiction era in which film noir also blossomed. These books add to Steve Neale's concept of the "appeal for authenticity"(47). Neale calls for this appeal in many notions of noir as a manner in which the film can sow the audience into the story even further, adding a twinge of reality to the seemingly fictional story on the screen. "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" makes much use of this idea, with other examples such as the name-dropping of real actors for parts in the fictional movie Lockhart is prepping for.
Interestingly, Lockhart is not the true noir hero. He is not very smooth at all, in fact. The girl of his dreams, the femme fatale character named Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), slept with every guy in their high school except for him. His humor and wit isn’t as much ‘look at how suave I am let me get in your pants’ as it is self-serving and at times self-deprecating. His quick and sharp responses are often more for his own enjoyment than for that of his counterpart. This is due to the fact that he is not really a detective; he is merely training to be a detective, and thus learning his suaveness on the job. But as a detective, he's a moron. He throws the gun in the lake after discovering a dead body, and is basically hopeless and inept without the guiding hand of "Gay" Perry. It’s as if Perry is schooling him in the art of being a noir hero, and eventually he becomes one.
What Lockhart does not have in skills, though, especially as a fighter as witnessed in the ass-kicking he receives early on, he makes up for in toughness. As is common in noir, the main character must go through some physical toil and still come out of it. After getting his ass beat, losing a finger, and being shot in the chest, among other things, one could say Lockhart certainly took his shots and kept delivering blows.
Overall, this film was not as much a part of the noir genre as it was a celebration of its language. This is why I loved it. It didn't play into the conventions that bored me - it simply highlighted the brilliance of its technique and language. Even the title is a shout-out to the lingo of the genre. And Robert Downey Jr. could not have been more perfect for the role. That certainly didn't hurt it.