this demented one of a kind comedy work best if you have see 4 or 5 noir or hard boil detective movie . because at that point you begin to notice the plot become conflated and entangled . the gag be that with a bit of thought you can splice 20 of them together and get something pretty similar . the resulting mystery and detection result in a story that doesn not make a whole lot of sense and but then lot of noirs do not make much sense ( the big sleep and somewhere in the night and dark passage ) . for noir and the tone and the striking composition and the moral code be much more important . whoever piece this together have a lot of fun with it . there quite a range of different comedy to enjoy . some of the funny bit just involve the new footage ( martin bleeding knee ) . some of them be absurd or revisionist ( rachel ward can hear martin voice over narration ) a whole lot of them involve the absurd plot line introduce by the old footage and that then have to be integrate . some running joke be duds ( adjust your breast bogart and his tie ) . others be awfully funny ( that never gon na heal . ) it also have some hysterical visuals ( martin balletic dodge of alan ladd bullet ) . some of the patch be funny while martin be constantly correct people when they get his name wrong ( because theyre talk to other character in other film ) the two best comic moment involve a unique way to make coffee and and martin hopeless and post rejection assessment of woman . all of this be ten floor above the usual adam sandler dross . if an academic ever give this it due a the first instance of meta and or at least an example of intertextuality and it would have more respect . if you have see it more than once and it interest to see why not just plot point but visuals have to be introduce and sometimes quite smoothly . i. e. martin get drug and offer to put on his pajama top ( over his suit ) because it need to match the schmo he double in the next vintage clip . too funny . you do not need to think hard at all to enjoy this and but if you like thoughtful movie and this offer a bonus level to consider . on the minus side and reni santoni be irritate and certifiably untalented . he doesn not deliver a single laugh .