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102 MINUTES Writer Shane Black helped usher in the era of overpriced hack screenplays with his Lethal Weapon and helped end it with his bomb The Last Boy Scout. Now he’s back to lampoon the system with this self-indulgent and unfunny comedy. Robert Downey Jr. was better off in the joint than playing an inept New York cat burglar who through dumb art-imitating-life circumstances ends up cast as the detective in a new Hollywood movie. Val Kilmer fares slightly better as the gay private dick hired to teach him the trade. Life imitates art, or at least bad movies, and then imitates life again as the odd couple encounter corpses (mostly female) and car chases. Neither the tiresome in-jokes nor the tortured plot convolutions improve an offensive plot involving various brutalized actresses (Michelle Monaghan brings spirit to a thankless role) and child abuse. Misogynistic, homophobic, smug, and pointless, Black’s auteur debut is an exercise in self-reflexivity, and the image reflected back is ugly.
BY PETER KEOUGH
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