THE RANKING

Merry Shane Blackmas, readers!

Chris: For me, Shane Black is Hollywood’s finest purveyor of pulp this side of Quentin Tarantino, and maybe even beyond Tarantino. But why are we ranking his films now? Because it’s nearly Christmas, and Christmas plays a huge part in a lot of Shane Black movies.

Dan: It’s a background thing. And even more so, given that most of his stories are set in Los Angeles, where it’s not going to snow. So there is almost always this weird little incongruity. Lethal Weapon, for example, is as much a Christmas movie as Die Hard. It opens with ‘Jingle Bell Rock’. Chris: Which The Last Boy Scout closes with.

Helen: We can talk about Shane Black’s cynicism, and certainly all of his characters are wisecracking and violent, but setting movies at Christmas gives you a licence to have moments of sincerity at the end.

James: The only one that definitely doesn’t have any Christmas is The Predator.

I was on set and I saw them wheeling out what looked like spruce trees. I said, “Is that a Christmas tree?” He said, “No, shut that shit down!” He was having none of it.

Chris: Yeah, he’s been trying to back away from it for years. It was a conscious, deliberate thing at first. And then when he did Iron Man 3, he didn’t want to set that at Christmas and his co-writer, Drew Pearce, said, “You have to set it at Christmas, you’re Shane Black.” The Nice Guys isn’t at Christmas until the very last scene. But we’re not doing Shane Black just because it’s Christmas. We’re doing him because a Shane Black script will smack you in the face, shoot you in the head and drop a really smart quip while doing so. Dan: He’s a very, very distinct writer. But he has his own tropes, doesn’t he? You’ve almost always got a duo at the heart of the story. A plot starting with the death of a woman, usually in a state of undress. Father-daughter relationships, as well as mother-daughter in The Long Kiss Goodnight. But the thing that stands out the most is the wisecracks. The one-liners. Chris: His first movie was The Monster Squad, co-written with Fred Dekker. Hey, Black and Dekker! I have affection for it, but I don’t think of that as a Shane Black movie, per se. Dan: It’s a bit scrappy and messy. It’s actually shit. I’m sorry.

Helen: It’s the only one I’ve seen once. Even The Predator,

I saw that one-and-a-half times.

Chris: Why one-and-a-half?

Helen: Someone called and I didn’t feel like going back to it. Chris: The Predator is interesting, because clearly something went wrong. It’s the only Shane Black film on this list where it feels like he’s doing a Shane Black impression.

James: It feels like this was his mid-life crisis. It was his attempt to recapture that experience of his first film, doing it with Fred Dekker, his friend from when they were kids. And it’s got reheated old gags, and the ending’s a mess.

Chris: His first proper solo screenplay was Lethal Weapon. It’s got all those tropes you talked about, and it’s a buddy movie at heart, but it’s not as funny as I had remembered.

Helen: It’s more emotional than most. You really feel Riggs’ trauma in a way you don’t in any of the others. As the series goes on, it becomes more of a yuk-fest, but in that first one he’s suicidal with grief. And Black doesn’t shy away from that.

James: It’s not a comedy on any level. It’s a really hardboiled, quite violent, dark thriller with clever dialogue.

Chris: I still think the second one’s my favourite. But he’s only credited with story on that, though I suspect there’s a lot of Shane Black lines still knocking around.

James: His draft was nothing like the actual story.

Chris: But he did kill Riggs at the end of his draft. I wonder if it would have been a better film had they gone ahead and done that. The Last Boy Scout came next, a film I quote all the time. “We’re being beaten up by the inventor of Scrabble”; “Touch me again and I’ll kill ya.” It’s so well directed by Tony Scott.

Dan: I revisited it and was crushingly disappointed. It’s easily his most problematic film and it’s quite unpleasant. The treatment of women in the film is quite horrible. I loved it as a twentysomething and now… well, maybe I’m just getting too old and grumpy.

Helen: I like the humour, but I never gelled with it the way I did many of his other films.

Chris: Is there any love, though, for The Long Kiss Goodnight?

Helen: Yes! This is one of my favourites of his. Not just because it has a female lead, although she was badass. Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson made for a great pair-up. Their chemistry, and how it changes as she undergoes a complete personality makeover, is fascinating.

Chris: While I think Tony Scott was the perfect director for The Last Boy Scout, I don’t think Renny Harlin was the perfect director for this. It’s too overblown.

James: It loses momentum.

Chris: After that, he was away for nine years and came back with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was also the big comeback for a guy called Robert Downey Jr. It could have gone wrong a million different ways, but it’s this utterly weird, idiosyncratic piece of work that is so, so funny and so dark.

Helen: I really like it. I still haven’t quite got my head around the plot.

Dan: I hate to be that guy again.

Chris: Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Helen: Dan sucks!

Dan: I don’t think it’s one of his stronger films. I think it’s very him, but to me he was too undisciplined. The Nice Guys is the better film. It’s wittier, it’s tighter, the central double act is stronger.

Chris: I love The Nice Guys. But for me, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is still Black’s best film as writer and director.

James: They’re both great films, but Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is magnificent. It started out as Black’s idea of a romantic comedy and then very quickly turned into something different. It’s funny, it’s chaotic, it’s all over the place, but that’s to the film’s credit. You don’t know what it’s going to do next.

Dan: I don’t think anyone says Shane Black dialogue better than Sam Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. And that was the movie that convinced Jon Favreau that Downey Jr would be a great Tony Stark. Years later, Downey Jr brings his buddy Shane Black in for Iron Man 3, which is about as pure a fusion of Black’s sensibilities and the MCU’S sensibilities as you can get. Now Dan is going to tell me why it’s problematic. Dan: No, not at all. I love Iron Man 3. It’s easily the best Iron Man movie. Is that because it’s got the least amount of actual Iron Man in it?

James: It’s a Tony Stark movie. It’s so beautifully written. It’s about who is Tony without the suit?

Helen: I think it’s probably the best Marvel movie. Not to feature Captain America. With the possible exception of Thor: Ragnarok.

Chris: And it’s a Christmas movie! Which brings us full circle. Enough squabbling, folks. Let’s vote. And merry Christmas, everyone!