REVIEW: The Nice Guys

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Shane Black is one of my favorite filmmakers, mostly because of his gift for witty dialogue and a remarkable ability to use the audience’s knowledge of movie tropes against them. He’s best known for writing Lethal Weapon – one of the all-time great action movies – but my personal favorite is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Black’s convoluted 2005 directorial debut is endlessly hilarious (multiple viewings are required to catch all the jokes) and it marked the first step in Robert Downey Jr.’s legendary comeback. In fact, his performance convinced Marvel that he’d be the perfect guy to play Tony Stark. (It’s no coincidence that Black and Downey reunited for Iron Man 3.)

His latest, The Nice Guys (which was partially shot in Atlanta), isn’t quite as strong as KKBB, but it is another private detective yarn with the same mischievous sense of humor, narrative complexity and inclination for sudden, shocking violence. In other words, I loved every second of it.

In 1970s Los Angeles, a bumbling investigator (Ryan Gosling) must team up with the hired enforcer (Russell Crowe) who recently roughed him up in order to solve a mystery involving a missing girl, a dead porn star and corruption in the auto industry. As with most of Black’s stories, the plot – as complicated as it is – ultimately doesn’t matter as much as the rapid-fire banter between the entertaining leads.

Gosling and Crowe have incredibly chemistry, and it’s great to see both of them lighten up a bit compared to their previous roles. Gosling is always more interesting when he plays oddballs or losers instead of the smoldering leading man. Crowe’s performance proves Black is a miracle worker.

Before The Nice Guys, I doubt you would’ve ever seen the words “Russell Crowe” and “funny” in the same sentence. Sure, his stone-faced brute is essentially the straight man to Gosling’s wacky P.I., but his befuddled reactions and understated observations are equally hilarious.

However, the film’s scene-stealing MVP is Angourie Rice, the 15-year-old relative newcomer who plays Gosling’s fiercely intelligent daughter. As the film’s moral center, she more than holds her own against her more experienced co-stars, and her scenes with each of them are both funny and touching. I’ve got a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of her in the years to come.

As I was leaving the press screening earlier this week, I overheard plenty of raves from the critic seats and more than a few puzzled reactions from the rest of the crowd. That’s probably not a scientific analysis of what to expect this weekend, but it makes perfect sense for a Shane Black movie.

It’s one of my favorite movies of the year so far, but I get that it’s probably not for everyone. At the very least it’s an original summer movie; we don’t get many of those anymore.

The Nice Guys is rated R for violence, sexuality, nudity, language and brief drug use.

Grade: A-