Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005 Shane Black & scr)

A terrific screenplay (based partly on the novel 'Bodies Are Where You Find Them' by Brett Halliday) delivered with some panache by Robert Downey Jr, Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan, who appropriately enough was in the first True Detective. My only complaint is that I would have liked Kilmer to kill the ailing child abusing father at the end, but otherwise it's an exciting corker, with two highly memorable scenes: Downey hanging from a corpse's arm over the freeway, and him trying to silence a dying girl so his presence is not revealed to the killer.

Throughout, knowingly subversive, and with the Christmas references Black brought to Lethal Weapon (Monaghan is dressed as a babe Santa type for the film's finale).

Didn't know any of the people behind the camera: John Ottman (music, perhaps his most significant credit being that he was the composer and editor of The Usual Suspects), Michael Barrett (photography, Bobby, Ted) and Jim Page (editor).

Lots of cinema in-jokes too, like the Lord of the Rings finale having fourteen endings, and the scene at the end where Downey the narrator says 'Don't you hate it when the character you thought was dead appears in the hospital - we might as well bring them all back" - and the dead bad guys walk in, along with Abraham Lincoln and Elvis!!

This is clearly from where my love of made-up pulp fiction titles emanates

"What do you do?"
"I'm retired. I invented dice."