Let's start with that one.
Okay - written and directed by Shane Black, sort of Seventies noir, but in somewhat of a goofy slapstick way.
If you've seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, you know the drill.
If you haven't seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, i might actually recommend you look it up before you see this one.
Not that there's anything wrong with The Nice Guys - it's a great ride; Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe play it for all it's worth, and Black's script gives them some decent material.
It's just that Gosling - who almost seems to be channeling the Nick Cage of Raising Arizona vintage - and Crowe, as a one-man free-lance osteofractive messenger service, don't really seem to have quite as much chemistry that Robert Downey and Val Kilmer had in the earlier film - and some of the action here is both less-freewheeling and more improbable-feeling. Also, they don't break the fourth wall as often.
But, hey - it's fun. A much-more-than-decent popcorn movie. There are a couple of places where it approaches the more surreal moments of the earlier film - one of which contains a nice little bit of misdirection for a later gag.
Black apparently chose 1977 pretty arbitrarily, as there are easily-visible period details that are just wrong - Blondie posters on a bedroom wall, Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum, and i'm sure there are others.
It's got one of those plots that noir filmmakers used to love - Dead porn actress whose aunt is sure she saw her niece alive two days after the car crash that killed her, who hires Holland March (Gosling) a PI who's drinking himself to death over a family tragedy to find her.
March gets a lead that points to a young woman named Amelia, begins trying to find her and talk to her. Amelia spots him, hires Jackson Healy (Crowe) - the afore-mentioned freelance osteofractive messenger service - to dissuade him.
Toss in environmental protestors, the dead porn star's last film (which seems to be fatal to be associated with) various unpleasant people looking to add Healy, March, Amelia and March's thirteen-year-old daughter to the list, clues of the "oh, THAT was what that meant" variety, an out-of-town specialist named "John Boy" brought in to tidy up loose ends, a party at a porn producer's mansion which goes ... wrong ... a couple of local talent type muscle - a salt-and-pepper team who are not, by a long shot, Vince Vega and Jules Winnfield, even more bodies (at least one of which was a "Who killed the chauffeur?" moment for me) ...
Oh, and Amelia's mother (Kim Basinger) is a highly-placed Justice Department official who probably knows more than she's saying.
Angourie Rice, the Australian kid who plays March's daughter Holly, is something of a revelation for those whose experience of teen actresses mostly includes Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and the like.
This one can act.
A huge percentage of the current audience, i'm sure, will just know the names Abbott and Costello - if they even know that much. Too bad for them; there's a sequence that, in my opinion, at least, is probably funnier if you've seen a couple of A&C films - ones involving haunted houses, ghosts, or whatever.
A buddy film in the Shane Black mode - think Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Long Kiss Goodnight.
As of tonight (20 May 2016), it has a 90% positive critics' rating (123 of 136) and 88% positive audience rating on RottenTomatoes.com.
I'd say it deserves it.
{Regular DragonCon attendees may find the LA hotel where a lot of the action takes place rather familiar-looking.}
Of all the reviews i've looked at so far, i think the one online at Salon.com says it best.
The Nice Guys is basically Chinatown remade by Quentin Tarantino and starring foulmouthed, updated versions of Abbott and Costello, as played by two of the most recognizable male stars of our time. Make your purchasing decisions accordingly.
