Kirk Warren (Giulano Gemma) is about to be executed when he receives a pardon on the condition that he steal a formula the government wants before it can fall into the hands of the mysterious "Mr. X." Warren also wants to be paid a million dollars and when his liaison balks, decides he'll steal the formula for himself. He enlists the help of several aides, including his girlfriend Alina Shakespeare (Nieves Navarro), pulls off the robbery, then is caught in a cat and mouse game of trying to get paid for the formula as he dodges friend and foe alike. There's an acrobat, a parrot named Socrates, a talking pigeon, and an elderly lady who wields a mean cane. Warren is given a gun that emits laughing gas instead of bullets. Of all the James Bond parodies that were made, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has to be one of the worst. Gemma, with his male model good looks, makes a convincing enough lover boy and anti-hero, there are some good settings, including Venice, and one decent scene when Warren has to parachute out of a plane onto a mountaintop, but mostly the movie is like one of the worst episodes of Batman and about as funny. It's interesting to note Warren uses a car that can go underwater, as in a much later James Bond movie with Roger Moore. The picture's score has musical diversity but is almost uniformly lousy. A dubbed Italian-Spanish co-production.
Verdict: Unfunny and atrocious. *.
