Movie Review: The Nice Guys

After the onslaught of sequels and franchise tentpoles, we can come up for much-needed air with The Nice Guys, a standalone, raunchy and thoughtful crime-comedy set in the drug-addled parties of the late ‘70s.

I love it when I see Australian actors in American movies. I get a little proud, which is a very rare occurrence. It’s happening more frequently now, too: Steve Peacocke in Tina Fey’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Sarah Snook in Steve Jobs, and now Angourie Rice (from 2014’s These Final Hours) in The Nice Guys. Make no mistake, she is the MVP of this wild, funky and frequently entertaining feature.

The Nice Guys co-stars Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as private investigators Healy and March, respectively, who, while investigating the death of an adult film actress in the partying and pot-smoking backdrop of the late ‘70s, become entangled in a politically-fuelled manhunt for Amelia Kutner (Margaret Qualley), daughter of Kim Basinger’s Department of Justice’s chief.

Director Shane Black (Iron Man 3) knows exactly what he’s doing – he’s dabbled in the genre before, with first directorial effort Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Even prior to this, his work in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s as screenwriter on the original Lethal Weapon movies has influenced and coloured this film. Since then, his style hasn’t become more restrained, per se; it has simply matured – delightfully so.

The screenplay (written by Black and Anthony Bagarozzi) is crackling with bursts of wit and pathos, and rather than being heightened by clichéd dialogue typical of action movies, it’s grounded in realism and the time period in which its set. This is bolstered by sleek, assured direction.

Black handles the divergent storylines with ease, without befuddling the audience with pesky details like who was doing what and where. The big set pieces (debaucherous parties splashed with violent confrontations) were invariably entertaining. The scenes involving DNMs between March and Healy, however, were not, and should have occurred concurrently with some other unfolding action.

The picture not only boasts sumptuous production design by Richard Bridgland and intelligent lensing by Philippe Rousselot (the perfectly lit discovery of a corpse is an ideal exemplar of this), but also a wealth of fine acting. Ryan Gosling is the perfect foil to Russell Crowe, the latter of whom I’m reluctant to admit was actually rather good. Their emotional subtext was tenderly developed and rarely felt forced or out of place.

Yet, it was Angourie Rice – as March’s headstrong, precocious daughter Holly - who gave the standout performance. (That’s despite the fact some scenes in which she appeared were morally dubious and not entirely realistic. Then again, I’m not from the ‘70s, so maybe a twelve-or-thereabouts-year-old-girl watching an adult film with said film’s star was a normal occurrence?) Rice is given some of the best lines and is the driver of many plot revelations. She should have appeared on the poster.

Perhaps the only real negatives were that a handful of plot twists flew past, leaving audience members to ask the person sitting next to them, "What did he just say?". Even if some points become clear later, it sometimes felt a little disorienting – particularly with Matt Bomer’s assassin character John Boy, the purpose of whom still eludes me. Also, the climax could have benefited from higher stakes.

Essentially, it was a less convoluted, more violent (and shorter) studio-version of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice (itself a pastiche of shaggy dog PI stories). So yes, it was a bit formulaic, and yes, it was a bit derivative, but so what? It was a heck of a ride.

4/5

In cinemas now. Rated MA15+ for strong violence, sex, nudity and coarse language.

Kyle Uglow-Turpin is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. Learn more about the contributors program.