"The Nice Guys" Review

Before he returns to the Predator franchise in 2018, Shane Black delivers another solid (albeit imperfect) comedy caper in The Nice Guys, starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.

The stars play a pair of mismatched private detectives tasked with unraveling a mystery surrounding the death of a porn star in late-'70s Los Angeles. Crowe plays Jackson Healy, a seasoned tough-guy who prefers to get things done with fists and handguns. Gosling is Holland March, the more bumbling of the two who seems to always haphazardly get results at the expense of his personal relationships. His 13-year old daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) disapproves of her dad's drinking and disorganization. Throughout the film, she turns up to reign both her dad and Jackson in as they work towards solving the case.

Black has always written interesting child characters and directed great performances from the actors playing them. That's the case here as Rice delivers a strong performance of a solid character. It's just that Holly feels so superfluous at times. Something's wrong with the script if you've got two of the biggest movie stars in the world constantly leaning on an unknown kid to move the plot forward and keep the audience engaged.

That said, Crowe and Gosling still have ample room to flesh their characters out in this world. They display excellent chemistry even if Gosling remains the more comically inclined of the two.

Things don't really go awry for the film itself until the last 20 or 30 minutes in which a conspiracy between Los Angeles city officials and Detroit auto makers reveals itself. Black creates a very vivid world here that's distinctly '70s West Coast, and then the story betrays it by shoehorning in some weak L.A.-based villains who suddenly seem obsessed with the city of Detroit. This culminates in an underwhelming climax that left me with far more questions than answers.

On the whole, Crowe and Gosling serve up a satisfying number of belly laughs while Black delivers plenty of solid action sequences. The Nice Guys just needs a script with a less hackneyed payoff.

B