Take one part standard detective drama, two parts buddy comedy and time travel back to 70\u2019s Los Angeles in a Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Lethal Weapon series) action script. That\u2019s THE NICE GUYS. Black directs Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as the unlikely duo tracking down a porn star\u2019s killer and why her last film is such a \u201chot\u201d property.<\/p>\n
The Nice Guys is not so nice in terms of violence. The body count is substantial. You know you\u2019re in for a bumpy ride when the movie opens with a naked, dead porn star. This movie earns its R-rating, but it mostly comes across as cartoon violence.<\/p>\n
Gosling takes the comedic lead and Crowe seems happy to play the straight man. Gosling shows his appreciation for the history of great comedy teams like the Marx Brothers and especially Abbott and Costello. In one scene where he\u2019s scared, he mimics the classic Lou Costello inhaled wheeze. He nails it!<\/p>\n
Gosling plays Holland March, a former police detective who left the force and climbed into a bottle after his wife died. His precocious daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) is both child and parent to the floundering father. She\u2019s becoming a pretty good gumshoe in her own right too. Russell Crowe is Jackson Healy. He only finds work as \u201cmuscle\u201d in the grimy underbelly of L.A. Healy gets paid to beat up low-life stalkers, perverts and deadbeats late on their payments. That\u2019s how Healy and March come together when Healy mistakenly targets March, pummels him and breaks his arm.<\/p>\n
After these hilarious first 15 minutes the film gets down to a fairly by-the-book \u201clet\u2019s get to the bottom\u201d of this mystery. But Shane Black keeps our interest with the setting, the time frame and especially the music. Producer Joel Silver (The Matrix, Die Hard) can take a lot of the credit for creating the details of the 70\u2019s like the clothing, the cars and references to media. The Waltons are involved in many punch lines and the villain in the tale is even named John Boy (Matt Bomer).<\/p>\n
We have to make mention of the nostalgic soundtrack. The disco, R&B and pop tunes stand out as their own characters. Songs like Boogie boogie Oogie by A Taste of Honey, Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind & Fire and Jive Talkin\u2019 by the Bee Gees pus many more oldies but goodies don\u2019t just provide the background they truly place the time and the feel of the moment, both emotionally and for comedy.<\/p>\n
Black also includes political and environmental issues in the script. Smog in L.A., long gas lines and auto industry greed are all introduced and come into play in the unlikely but funny pursuit of a film can with a porno flick that relates to all those issues. Nice trick but at times it all felt rather confusing trying to sort out the booze, drugs dead bodies and saving the world.<\/p>\n
Is this movie worth your bucks? The growing partnership between Crowe and Gosling is fun to see develop especially when it begins with repeated punches and a broken arm. There are real laughs here. Gosling was given the opportunity to improvise many scenes and even though he says a lot of that didn\u2019t make it onto the screen he shows a real appreciation for understanding comedy and working hard for those laughs. Watch for the bathroom door slam scenes. The timing is really effective. The set up for a sequel is in plain sight and our bet is it\u2019s on the way. Yes, spend your bucks to boogie with The Nice Guys.<\/p>\n
Warner Bros. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01 hour 56 minutes \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0R\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Reviewed May 20, 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Take one part standard detective drama, two parts buddy comedy and time travel back to 70\u2019s Los Angeles in a Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Lethal Weapon series) action script. That\u2019s THE NICE GUYS. Black directs Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as the unlikely duo tracking down a porn star\u2019s killer and why her last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1826,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions\/1826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}