The Nice Guys

I feel sorry for not giving this nice chill-out movie four stars, but if you’ve seen the best of Shane Black, you’d know he didn’t hit the bull’s eye with this one. The Crowe/Gosling duo is great, their catchphrases are cool and the atmosphere of 1980s L.A. might be the best since L.A. Confidential. But the plot the guys are dealing with is watery and uninteresting, barely even there. (08/09/2016)

Black is back on form. And although it’s more Kiss Kiss Bang Bang than Last Scout, in view of what we are offered in the way of movies today, this is a breath of fresh air for a smelly, sequel-reliant Hollywood. Nice Guys score highly mainly due to their complex screenplay which, even though it leads toward a certain goal, dropping clues to solve the case along the way, it works excellently in individual scenes, too. These scenes are usually either comedy (almost always with an ingenious punchline) or action-based. The plot revolving around the lost porn film/actress offers a good portion of Black’s inventiveness (beware - unlike other creators, he repeats himself a little in his films, but always very refreshingly) and again first-class work with child characters. He hit the jackpot in his choice of actors. Gosling is awesome. In the role of a kind-hearted, chubby guy, Crowe gives an excellent performance (he’s beginning to look a bit like Goodman), it’s just Kim who simply looks somehow old, even under tons of makeup and she her acting just isn’t good enough. Drugged up bees, naked mermaids and a villain with a blue face. a wonderful comedy which I’ll watch again soon. - What was that noise? - Pardon? Oh, I was just throwing a girl out of the window. (06/02/2016)

It's a decent retro one-off, whose atmosphere and frilly 1980s LA visuals are far more engaging than the story around which the two well-acted main characters revolve. By the way, this is the kind of daughter I wanted in the new Jack Reacher and didn't get. Brilliant one-liners and great action. A bit better Starsky & Hutch, but very similar. (11/06/2016)

Black is a wisecracker and he knows how to write characters, fully humanize them, and then let them sprinkle (not only) verbal humor in dialogue exchanges that make the audience squirm. Yet the entire film is covered by such a terribly lame and in many moments transparent crime plot that it wouldn't even hold up as a retro episode of CSI. If the investigative aspects hadn't been taken so seriously (a take on so many strong social themes) and had settled for more self-deprecating silliness, it would be a genre perennial. [It dissipated quickly the day after I watched it.] 3 ½. (05/25/2016)

I got what I wanted. But it's worth remembering that Shane Black, who wrote The Last Boy Scout, was twenty-five years younger, so The Nice Guys is closer to his directorial debut Kiss Kiss Bang Bang than to the rampage of Joe Hallenbeck and Jimmy Dix. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are a bit off as the detectives most of the time and usually don't really know who's shooting at them and why, but Black is understandably in complete control of the whole situation and lays his cards on the table at the right time. The whole thing is endearingly goofy though, so not only do the protagonists have no idea what's going on around them at times, but Black is able to afford some very campy (and great) action scenes full of ideas, bizarre jokes and punchlines you wouldn't expect. The Nice Guys is a smart crime drama, but one that wants to do things a little differently and isn't afraid to rely on mostly pretty gritty and cynical humour alongside the honest battles and shootouts, playing with audience expectations and making it entertaining to the last minute. You'll never know what Black will pull on you in the next scene. You just know it's going to be great. (05/15/2017)