Ahhh … this is why Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling were presenting together at the Oscars. I feel abused. Such blatant cheesiness is so often compensation for a crappy project that when it’s attached to a quality one, it seems … wrong. Great art doesn’t need a plug; great art sells itself. Don’t be stupid, Jim … every movie needs advertising, even blockbusters – if for no other reason than to let you know they’re gonna be busting blocks.
A boy sneaks into his sleeping parents’ bedroom after hours. Silently, he collects a porn mag and opens it to centerfold “Misty Mountains.” Outside the El Lay hills stilt house, a muscle car veers wildly down the canyon. Oblivious, the kid remains riveted to his stolen booty. And at that point, the car smashes through the house stopping only after colliding with the earth below and ejecting it’s sole passenger, the mostly nude Misty Mountains herself.
If that opening doesn’t grab you, no opening ever will.
Professional thug Jackson Healy (Crowe) and most unprofessional private detective Holland March (Gosling) eventually team up to find Misty Mountains’ killer. Jackson actually breaks Holland’s arm when the two first meet, after which he is unwittingly offered a Yoo-hoo by Holland’s teen daughter Holly (Angourie Rice). The next time we see Jackson, he’s hauling a case of Yoo-hoo, a very newly acquired taste, to his apartment. This is clearly a screenplay in which strong arm heaviness did not impede fun.
For a medium (crime cinema) that often has trouble presenting a flawed hero, there are two excellent ones here – Jackson is essentially a goon, but we like him for his politeness and for taking umbrage when his peers show a lack of professionalism. Holland is the gumshoe version of an ambulance chaser; his understanding of detection is taking lurid photographs and stringing along clients for bigger paychecks. And we the audience enjoy them both because, like the title says, they are The Nice Guys … or perhaps they’re just a shade or two nicer than the guys they’re after. Does it matter?
Despite being a fairly graphic film, rarely shy on blood or boobs, The Nice Guys constantly errs on the lighter side of leg-breaking. Watch Jackson entertain taking out a contract on a teen rival of Holly … right in front of her father, of course.
Watch Ryan Gosling channel Lou Costello. Watch Holly get a better lead than either man because, well, at a porn party, which among them would you confide in?
Why anybody wants to revisit the 1970s is beyond me. I lived through it, people. We got really excited about being American somewhere in the middle of the decade, but other than that, it started with war and ended with disco. Nobody needs that. I wonder if these 70s crime tales like Inherent Vice exist to describe a period just modern enough to seem relevant, yet completely without cell phones (the foil to the modern crime tale).
An avian pair investigating
An El Lay porn mutilating
These birds on a lark
If they miss the mark
At least they earned an R-rating
Rated R, 116 Minutes
D: Shane Black
W: Shane Black, Anthony Bagarozzi
Genre: Thisclose to noir. Maybe noir-lite, eh? What’s French for “charcoal?”
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Guys
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Lou Costello, maybe?
