A Benny Hill to die on

Artists are to free speech what NRA members are to weaponry: blind to living without it. And so sitting through Kiss Kiss Bang Bang once more I must defend Shane Black's puerile body humour and formalised misogyny as having a right to exist but 16 years later the film is no less cringemaking. All other elements of the Shane Black Script are present: a mismatched duo, Christmas, cars, money deals, scary paramilitary killers, an even scarier killer without a creed. In 2016 this will morph into The Nice Guys which is cleverer and nearly mature.

My theory is that Black is a director, not a writer. He's great with actors: in Kiss Kiss Michelle Monaghan and Robert Downey Jr pop. Screenwriter Black acknowledges Brett Halliday's Mike Shane mysteries as a source for both films. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is based on Bodies Are Where You Find Them and The Nice Guys takes inspiration from Blue Murder. Halliday is just one of the pen names of American writer Davis Dresser who wrote too many books to have written them all, a blurring which may have freed Black to mess with it.