A Colorful, Funny Throwback to the Action Comedies of Yesteryear
Writer-director Shane Black, the creator of Lethal Weapon, returns to his Los Angeles murder mystery, buddy comedy roots with The Nice Guys. It's a colorful action comedy about the hunt for the missing Amelia (Margaret Qualley), led by enforcer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) and his reluctant partner (and one-time target), neer-do-well P.I. Holland March (Ryan Gosling). Black's trademark repartee is a joy to behold in the hands of Gosling and Crowe, who make March and Healy a team brimming with personality against the colorful backdrop of 1970s L.A. Though The Nice Guys doesn't reinvent the wheel, it rolls along smoothly for an entertaining ride.
The script, co-written by Black and Anthony Bagarozzi, is one of the film's greatest assets, weaving a mystery about murder and corruption for March and Healy to solve while making Los Angeles an outright character in the film. L.A. is often a shooting location for films and TV shows, whether as itself or standing in for another place, but many productions fail to capture the city's personality in putting it on screen. (Most notably the TV shows that want us to believe L.A. is actually San Francisco or New York, even with all the palm trees, and therefore fail to make the onscreen city feel authentic even as itself let alone some other place.) We see the hills, the Valley, the iconic L.A. City Hall, and—most fittingly for 70s Los Angeles—the adult film industry, all of which add color to the story and make the setting essential. The Nice Guys couldn't be set in Boston or Chicago.
Inhabiting this distinctive rendering of the city are Gosling and Crowe, each at their best with this lighter fare. Gosling makes March a weaselly, cowardly detective who constantly stumbles his way forward in a case (think of him as an alcoholic Inspector Clouseau). Crowe, so often the heavy, or at the very least serious, appears to have a lot of fun with the personable yet formidable Healy. He's a poker-faced man with a light touch.
The only cast member who manages to steal scenes from Gosling and Crowe is Angourie Rice, who plays March's teenage daughter Holly, who most certainly is the brains in her household. Black continues his streak from Iron Man 3 of neither making the "cute kid sidekick" too plucky nor too cloying, and Rice makes for the perfect foil to March and Healy. The rest of the cast is stacked with excellent performers, from the villainous Keith David and Matt Bomer to district attorney Kim Basinger, and they all make decent impressions while onscreen (David is underused), though the film belongs to Gosling, Crowe and Rice.
On the action front, Black doesn't do anything particularly wowing—and the same goes for the stylish cinematography, save for one great shot where March finds a dead body by accident—but all the fist fights and shootouts are easy to follow and are fun to watch more because of the characters in them than how slickly they're staged. The Nice Guys is filled with hilarious characters and atmospheric situations and locations, and it's those elements that make it such a joy to watch. Action comedies like Lethal Weapon are in short supply these days (unless the protagonists are wearing spandex), so it's a real treat to get one that works so well from a master of the genre.
Note: I left my screening of The Nice Guys entertained, but also whelmed (neither over- nor under-). I had seen the various trailers for the film so many times before seeing the actual movie, many of its best jokes were spoiled for me (the repeat viewing made it easy to remember the lines/sight-gags). So if, like me, you've seen A LOT of promotional material for The Nice Guys, don't be surprised if you feel like you've already seen the best parts, because in many cases you have.