“Yeah, it’s a dumb movie thing, but what do you want me to do, lie about it?”

I like films that break the 4th wall and do it well. For the uninformed, “breaking the 4th wall” refers to those moments when a character in the film directly addresses the audience in some way. This is not to be confused with narrating, which is simply a means of progressing or explaining the story (for the most part. I’ll get to that later). Breaking the 4th wall is deliberate and direct communication with the audience. Ferris Bueller does this a lot. He looks directly into the camera and tells us how to fake out parents and that you can never go too far.

I think I enjoy these moments so much because it’s the film’s way of saying “Hey, I know I’m a movie and I’m not going to take myself too seriously, so just sit back and enjoy.” One of the most annoying comments I hear about films is “It was too unrealistic”. Really? You want the film to be more realistic?! Isn’t the point of going to a film to escape reality for a short time (or a ridiculously long time)? People say “There’s no way that character could have survived that!” Are you serious?! You’d prefer a film where the main character dies in the first 15 minutes? You’d stand up and say “Well, that was certainly short and pointless, but at least it was real.”?!?

"For example..."

Ok, I’m kind of going off on a tangent here, but the point is that I like it when a movie recognizes those situations and takes a brief moment to simply remind us that we’re watching a movie, not real life. If you want real life, leave the theatre (or basement, in my case). Having said all that I can appreciate that we may not necessarily want reality, but we don’t want to be treated like idiots either. It’s perfectly acceptable for James Bond to be able to survive a jump out of a 3 story building as it explodes while simultaneously shooting four bad guys and landing in the driver’s seat of an Aston Martin convertible, uninjured. It’s not acceptable for Bond to simply fly out of harm’s way or turn invisible (without the aid of Q, of course). Both situations are totally unrealistic, but the former fits within the world we’ve been presented.

Yeah, so I think I went off on another tangent there. What was my point?

Oh yeah, the fourth wall.

‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ breaks the fourth wall. A lot. And it’s perfect. I found the movie all the more entertaining because it keeps reminding us that it’s just a movie. Relax. Chill out. This is not reality. This is movie. Suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the ride.

I was supposed to come back to the narrating bit. The main character in ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ narrates a lot and actually does break the fourth wall through his narrating, despite the fact that I said narrating is not to be confused with breaking the fourth wall. Did you get all that? If you’re at all confused, just watch ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ and then watch ‘Stranger Than Fiction’. One breaks the fourth wall. One narrates. Well, they both narrate but ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ is the example of narrating I’m referring to here. Er, there. Somewhere.

Anyway, the point is, I really liked ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ and ‘Stranger Than Fiction’. You should come over and watch them with me.

Also, James Bond films are fun.

How’s that for a review?