Review: The Nice Guys

A thoroughly entertaining slice of nostalgia noir, The Nice Guys features the unlikely and surprisingly successful comic pairing of Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as mismatched shaggy dog detectives in 1970s Los Angeles.

Los Angeles may be City of Angels, but it is also a boulevard of broken dreams where smog strangles the skies and sleaze is the oxygen inhaled by the denizens. It's been a playground for the likes of private eyes Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Lew Harper, and Jake Gittes, all of whom often discover new circles of hell as they track dangerous dames, dirty cops, dirtier politicians, and lecherous lowlifes. The Nice Guys upholds the template but injects the seaminess with slapstick, not entirely unexpected considering Shane Black made his name by penning the screenplay for Lethal Weapon and his directorial debut with the tart and tarty Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

The death of porn star Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio) kickstarts the plot. A young boy comes across her naked body, her pose a grotesque imitation of her centerfold image. A brunette in a yellow dress (Margaret Qualley) may hold the key to Misty's not-so-accidental demise. The brunette is Amelia and she is a very wanted woman. Some very bad men, including the creepily-banged John Boy (Matt Bomer), are after her to shut her up or kill her - same difference in this world - for knowing too much for her own good. She might be saved by Jackson Healy (Crowe) and Holland March (Gosling) if she wasn't busy running away and if they weren't distracted by their aggressive and amusing bantering.

Healy is a thug for hire - he may work for anyone who'll scrape together a few bucks, but he was principles. He's impeccable at his job and Crowe imparts an almost gentlemanly solicitousness to Healy that makes him the perfect straight man to Gosling's always-soused, ever bumbling, and spectacularly invincible March. Indeed, Gosling proves himself a deft physical comedian, whether throwing himself off a balcony, rolling down a hill and coming to an upright position with drink firmly in hand or, in one of the film's most hysterical moments, fumbling with a bathroom stall door, pointing a gun, and trying to keep a magazine over his genitalia.

The story meanders a mite too much at times but Black keeps things moving with zingy bon mots, well-staged sequences such as the eventful party at a porn producer's abode, and the free-for-all finale that takes March's pratfalls to absurd new heights. His production team vividly recreate 1970s Los Angeles as a toxic paradise.

There's a great deal to like about The Nice Guys, chief among them the gifted Australian actress Angourie Rice as Holly, March's wise but unjaded thirteen-year-old daughter. Qualley is slightly shrill as the petulant Amelia and Kim Basinger, reuniting with her L.A. Confidential co-star Crowe, is almost embarrassingly stilted as Amelia's high-powered mother. Considering Qualley is the real-life daughter of Andie MacDowell, it's a minor mystery as to why Black went with Basinger instead of MacDowell.

The Nice Guys

Directed by: Shane Black

Written by: Shane Black, Anthony Bagarozzi

Starring: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Kim Basinger, Yaya DaCosta, Keith David, Beau Knapp, Lois Smith