I know that I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to drive so my buddy and I could go on wild goose chases like Mel Gibson and Danny Glover did in Lethal Weapon. But when the time finally came for this, our lives were more reflective of Ricky and Tre’s from Boyz in the Hood as we spent the majority of our time driving around with 40’s and trying to have sex with Catholic school girls. But I have to give writer/director Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boyscout) credit for being the lone consistent writer in LA to help keep this genre alive.
My favorite of movie of his is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang starring Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. This is the point where he reached his peak as a writer as his intricate storytelling was only matched by the snappy and streamlined dialogue he provided for his talented cast. And while The Nice Guys isn’t quite on that level it does come pretty darn close. When it comes to executing Black’s scripts, chemistry between the two actors is paramount otherwise the film just won’t work; and for the most part Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe seem to work well together.
In The Nice Guys, Crowe is a low level problem solver; meaning, if someone is causing you strife in your life, you simply hire him and he will put an end to it. And while he is good at what he does, he does appear to be a bit disgusted with the work and with himself in general; he wants to do something meaningful and good in his life for a change. Meanwhile Gosling is a private investigator who spends the majority of his time getting over on senile old ladies who are slowly living out the remaining years of their lives by searching for their dead husbands. While he’s clearly a talented P.I., he simply settles for doing just enough to get his next payday as he spends his entire day boozing and disappointing his sassy 13 year old daughter who tries her hardest to bring out the best of him.
Well their two paths cross one day as the girl Gosling has been following around has hired Crowe to get him off of her trail. Gosling has been hired to find the recently deceased porn star Misty Mountains and in the process has stumbled upon a murderous plot that involves an assortment of weird characters who are obviously doing their best to cover their tracks.
Now if you’ve ever seen a Shane Black film before then you know that the story isn’t as simple as it seems. You will be taken through a host of twists and turns before you finally figure out who’s behind the sinister scheme but you’ll also find yourself laughing every step of the way.
Coming off of a successful turn as the douchey but highly motivated stock broker in The Big Short, Gosling seems like a natural in his comedic skin as the down on his luck P.I. Every time the film seems to have a bit of a lull, he’s always there to take things up a notch with his high pitch screams in the face of danger or with his drunken misadventures which somehow also turn hallucinatory at times.
Black’s humor is not for the faint of heart as he has a complete disregard for what’s considered P.C. these days, so expect to find yourself laughing at a few jokes that would otherwise make your mother frown. But in the end, isn’t this what we all really want? Well those of us who are still in a bit of a rebellious stage anyway. This movie doesn’t quite flow as well as some of his masterpieces in the past have but that’s probably due to the fact he had a relatively inexperienced (as far as Hollywood is concerned anyway) co-writer in Anthony Bagarozzi help him.
But having said all of that, I will still give this movie a rating of very FRESH as this movie is starting to grow on me more and more by the second.
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