The Nice Guys | Film Review

It’s 1970s Los Angeles. That sliver of time where Hollywood was undergoing a cultural transformation and adult entertainment had begun to thrive. After an established porn star dies in a mysterious accident, alcoholic P.I. Holland March (Ryan Gosling) and his Nancy Drew-ish daughter Holly (Angourie Rice), team up with redemption-seeking fixer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) to find a missing girl, whom might just hold the key to a vast conspiracy.

That is about all I can tell you about the plot of “The Nice Guys” without carving away the discovery, but one detail you need to know is this is not some mainstream detective thriller. This is another entry in the Shane Black ‘How-To’ book on making a buddy-action flick. “Lethal Weapon”, “The Last Boy Scout”, and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” all stem from the singular, off-kilter mind of Black, and these “Nice Guys” slide right into place beside them. Black is a writer /director who revels in the seedy underbelly of L.A. (as well as a weird Christmas fetish), and loves to rip the curtain away from any angelic visions of the town other films might have seeded in our brains.

That’s exactly why “The Nice Guys” feels so fresh from so many other detective thrillers. Black’s heroes are flawed creatures of habit, filled to the brim with despicable behavior, yet harvest a hint of optimism that they can finally do something morally sound. March and Healy – for all of their faults – feel like real characters, as opposed to Hollywood caricatures. They aren’t superheroes impervious to pain or poor choices, these are guys who solve crimes almost by happenstance and then randomly engage in firefights or chases that routinely injure innocent bystanders. The film’s title ironically says it all.

Russell Crowe has been in this world before, as he plays Healy as though Bud White time-warped to the 70s. He’s a tough guy with a heart, and he is never more than 4 words away from an old-fashioned street brawl. Gosling as March, on the other hand, proves yet again he is so much more than another Tinseltown pretty-boy. March is a decent detective, a fairly awful father, and he spends 75% of the movie drunk. Yet somehow, thanks to Gosling’s tit-for-tat performance with any other actor he brushes against, we keep pulling for the guy. It takes immense talent to cause an audience to root for the most pathetic guy on screen, and Gosling has the goods.

Surprisingly holding the screen against two acting powerhouses is newbie Angourie Rice as March’s precocious daughter, Holly. If you’re a fan of “The Last Boy Scout”, it is near impossible to escape comparisons to Darian Hallenbeck, as Holly is very much the 70s version of that character – rebellious daughter of a washed-up PI. Rice kicks remaining comparisons to the curb by bringing her A-game and evolving less into a whiny, spoiled brat, and more into the curious caregiver of a lost parent. This is a star-making role for Rice, and hopefully the future shines bright for the young actress. She’s the real deal.

Yes, much of the plot is predictable, absurd and derivative of numerous like-minded thrillers in the past. Yet, as long as Hollywood will let him, I pray Shane Black continues churning out these hysterical stabs at noir pulp fiction. He has the perfect voice for it – a mix of sardonic and sadistic – while his immersion and sheer joy in these worlds creates nothing short of a shameful glee for us as viewers.

Healy and March are far from anything resembling nice, but spending a couple of hours with them sure was fun as hell.