The Nice Guys (2016)

The Nice Guys (R)

"Nice Guys don't always finish last"

A Private detective who is an alcoholic single father gets hired by a muscle-for-hire goon, the same one who broke his arm the night before, to help find a mysterious woman and the mysterious LA underworld circumstances under which she vanished in Shane Black's entertaining NeoNoir flick, The Nice Guys.

Shane has long been the good manly man movie writer working in Hollywood, what with Predator, Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and Iron Man 3 under his belt.  His current high water mark was the similarly themed (and funny) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  This Nice Guys dips back into his well as once again a detective buddy picture about two disparate men with gore and sex and all that good stuff we liked in manly movies from the 80s, which clearly bucks the trends of socially friendlier adult fare on the big screen.

This time it stars Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Russel Crowe (Gladiator) as at-odds partners stepping from trail to trail to find even greater mysteries to solve.  The key to the film is that these two have great chemistry, have lots of funny lines to spout and lots of guns to shoot.  The rest of the cast are mere filler (though Black's trend of having a kid sidekick can be a little grating to the audience and the plot).  The underlying mystery, traveling from the porn friendly Los Angeles hills to the streets of urban life, lays out an exaggerated 1970s retro lifestyle that matches the decor and costumes and music.  The story is often slumming through post-counter culture sex and mores, and the ambiguous mix of testosterone in Gosling and Crowe go great with it.  But not everything is cool like a 7&7 here.

While the underlying message of the struggle of fatherhood can be seen in most of Black's work, here it has a creepy underpinning of underage sexual proclivities, rubbing up as it does with the 70s porn scene.  This may not sit right with some modern viewers, even though its cringe-impact is obviously intentional.  Also, the gun fights and action aren't as well paced or blocked as other director's have done with his scripts.  Shane has a proven track record of outstanding punchy dialog but his direction of action scenes is stodgy to say the least, as is some of the digital compositing.  Sadly, Kim Basinger is in the cast to relive her LA Confidential comeback but she appears completely uncomfortable as a shady LA DA and doesn't add much credence to the sometimes murky plot.  However if you can kick your feet up and go with the flow it all shouldn't stress you out too too much.

In action/comedy however he excels, and he and his leads nail it to the wall with an original, witty, decadent twist on a genre forgotten by most Studios, to which which we ask for more.

"More?  Me too, mine's as big as a house!"

8 ...and Stuff out of 10 (GREAT)