The Nice Guys Review
Vibrant, hilarious, gut punching, and absolutely refreshing. The Nice Guys, directed by Shane Black, brings that sense of creative flavor that every film connoisseur needs when cleansing their pallet between superhero flicks. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are pitch perfect together, and as they unwind this tale of a complicated murder, funny antics and awesome actions scenes ensue.
You're introduced to two characters. One that takes on jobs to keep people away (i.e. breaking arms and limbs), and another that is a washed up detective. The way Crowe and Gosling play off each other is genius. You can tell that these are two guys from two different worlds, and in theory they shouldn't get along as well as they do, but like any good buddy detective movie you can see their relationship going from two guys in a sticky situation who has to team up out of convenience, to two guys who actually trust each other and in a way helps each other to the point that they should stick together.
Crowe's character is the most mysterious in this film. You can tell by the way he acts, and is always trying to control himself that there's something terrible that happened to him. One of my favorite parts of his character is that he'll always refuse to drink when offered a beer. You can tell that he's trying his hardest to not succumb to whoever he was before, and that says a lot about Crowe's character than him giving a sob back story, which he kind of does anyway.
Gosling was not only on fire with this film, but I'd say it's one of his best performances. I was laughing my butt off at nearly everything Gosling did. Heck, he even had a Scooby-Doo scene! Gosling plays a bumbling detective, and since that's such a common trope you'd think it'd be easy to make it cheesy, or just outright stupid, but Gosling brings a certain charm to his performance that he's a messed up guy, but deep down he is picking up on these clues that no one else is. He actually has some really smart deductions in this, but what I liked more was that he was wrong on more than one occasion. To me this not only was for comedic affect, but also made his character human. We do make mistakes, and in a way the audience will relate to Gosling's character even more.
The style of the film is totally Shane Black. People are saying that The Nice Guys are a spiritual sequel to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and in a way it is. They share some of the same story beats, and the comedy is exactly like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is really smart. You take a simple situation and turn it upside down by bringing the unexpected. Like in the trailer, Crowe asks for the gun, Gosling tosses it, it goes too high and out the window. They curse. Perfect example of what type of comedy this film rolls on, and it's nothing but genius throughout.
Like any detective story, the plot has to confuse and seriously try to be smarter than the audience, and in that I think lies the only real problem with the film. At times the actual detective plot doesn't really feel like the story this film wants to tell. In fact for the first two acts it acted more as a B-story to Crowe's and Gosling's relationship and antics while trying to piece together the murder. When we get to the third act, though, it's all coming together, in a somewhat confusing way, while the comedy starts to drop off. This made the ending feel strange.
To me, The Nice Guys is all about the experience and the characters rather than the convoluted dastardly plot. Crowe and Gosling were on point, and delivered amazing performances. This film will make you laugh your ass off, and as something refreshing from all these blockbusters, sequels, superhero flicks, this film definitely brings the experience of going to the theater back as something special.
B+
