Setups, Payoffs & Reversals

Setups, Payoffs & Reversals is an adoring, obsessive and personal look at the films of Shane Black. From Lethal Weapon to Play Dirty, each chapter celebrates Black's signature style of "cheap tricks and cheesy one-liners" (Iron Man 3), male friendship (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Christmas chaos (most of em), big personality henchmen (The Nice Guys) and the blood-soaked trail to redemption (all of em). Jake Jabbour examines each movie from the perspective of where he was when he saw it, and what the movie would come to represent about culture, action movies, and the filmmaker Shane Black. It's a genre-savvy deep dive that explores the reinvention, deconstruction and eventual revolution of ten films over thirty years. Whether you're a fan of Shane Black, an action movie connoisseur, or a broken hero too old for this s**t, this book will dazzle like a Christmas tree with an exploding helicopter in the background. With examinations of Last Action Hero's logical paradox to the imposter syndrome of The Long Kiss Goodnight to the framing of The Last Boy Scout as a dis record, Jabbour responds to the films as setups with his own payoffs and reversals.