Year of Release: 2016
Genre: Comedy
Run Time: 111mns
Age Rating: 15 (UK)
Directed By: Shane Black
**SPOILER ALERT**
Synopsis
After the sudden and mysterious death of a porn star, a private detective called Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is hired to look for a missing girl however hired thug Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is hired by Holland's only lead to stop him making any progress. After coming to blows the two discover a case far more complex than either of them could have imagined and start working together. During the course of their investigation the two encounter psychopathic assassins, crooked officials and a rather confused old lady and along with the help of Hollands' daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) they try to uncover the links between the seemingly unrelated clues.
Review
Since my first review was somewhat negative I thought long and hard about what I would like to review next that wouldn't make me sound like the whinging fanboy that I am. So I sat and looked through my film collection to find a movie that I could distance myself from sufficiently as to watch, note down and review it without having a red storm cloud of pre-judgement in front of my eyes. However I got bored of trawling through them so I went to HMV and spent my 'hard earned cash' on a film I had never heard of instead ... and what a brilliant decision that was!
'The Nice Guys' is an American neo-noir comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe and to get this across from the off it is a wonderful example of what modern American comedy should resemble. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the action scenes are tight and well directed and there is a heavy element of slapstick comedy within this movie, which I have to say is a welcomed change to the more recent trend of over the top obnoxious humour we've been exposed to by the likes of the Lord himself, Adam Sandler. Now I have gushed my emotions like a love-struck 13 year old Tumblr user I feel that I should expand on my feelings.
First and foremost I'm going to talk about the writing and acting within this film as it pretty much hit the nail on the head. The story itself is at heart a buddy-cop comedy which in my humble opinion is a genre that has been stretched out using the same rinse and repeat formula for some years now, yet somehow the writers managed to make a script that not only felt fresh but also seemed somewhat original. The performances of the three leads (Gosling, Crowe and Rice) are exceptional and their on-screen chemistry is a wonder to behold, the way they bounced their lines off each other seemed so relaxed and natural. It was the lead's chemistry that really held this film together even in the story's weakest points, which came for me around the halfway mark.
The characters themselves are also a high point of the film for me as even though they are in essence all slightly over exaggerated caricatures of 70s stereotypes e.g: Gosling's hapless private detective character with more mustache than he has career prospects. It was also nice to see a change in what I'd expect to see from roles played by Gosling and to some extent Crowe who for this movie dropped their respective typecasting. Usually when it comes to a Gosling character I would expect equal parts romance & abs however in this film neither appear, instead Gosling more resembles a Jar Jar Binks-esque character with a bumbling nature. Crowe starts out as his usual unshaven badass character, a man who is willing to kill on a whim but as the film goes on and his relationship with Angourie Rice's character evolves he softens and for me this is what makes these characters' special, behind the slightly over the top nature of them there is a vulnerable human side to them to which makes it very easy to relate to them.
The one fault that I could pick with the characters is that I felt too much time was spent on the protagonists meaning that the film sorely lacked a villain with a Z axis, this did make it hard for me to comprehend which character was the primary villain or to fully understand their actions. Even though I doubt these villains could stand up in a strong breeze I still found that I enjoyed the screen time that was spent with them as the extravagant portrayals of the characters made them entertaining enough to fit right into the mold of this movie. A good example of this ridiculousness is when one of the villains, a hit-man named 'John Boy' sent after Gosling, starts shooting up the front of Gosling's character's home and as Gosling and Crowe return fire, the villain keeps changing his weapons starting with a small pistol and ending with a fully automatic assault rifle, his car boot channeling Mary Poppins' handbag but with more calibre in this situation.
This brings me onto my final topic nicely as I want to talk about the action scenes within this film as they are definitely some of the best I've seen in a while. Fights are fast paced and fluid for a comedy film and the deaths are pretty brutal whilst maintaining a certain level of realism, for example if a character dies they don't get a monologue before their expiry. This brutal realism juxtaposed with over the top characters genuinely shocked me on a couple of occasions as, unlike in other unflinchingly violent films such as 'Saving Private Ryan' in which the characters all seem so fragile due to death being so prevalent, the characters in 'The Nice Guys' are so fanciful that you are lulled into presuming that they are invincible rendering the idea of their sudden and violent deaths even more shocking.
Overall I'd say that 'The Nice Guys' is a very entertaining film with a strong script and an excellent cast who have a great onscreen chemistry. It is also an exceedingly well shot film which truly immerses the viewer in it's setting as although I wasn't around in the 70's I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing that screams 70's like seedy porn, hippies and Ryan Gosling's mustache.
Scoring:
Review
Since my first review was somewhat negative I thought long and hard about what I would like to review next that wouldn't make me sound like the whinging fanboy that I am. So I sat and looked through my film collection to find a movie that I could distance myself from sufficiently as to watch, note down and review it without having a red storm cloud of pre-judgement in front of my eyes. However I got bored of trawling through them so I went to HMV and spent my 'hard earned cash' on a film I had never heard of instead ... and what a brilliant decision that was!
'The Nice Guys' is an American neo-noir comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe and to get this across from the off it is a wonderful example of what modern American comedy should resemble. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the action scenes are tight and well directed and there is a heavy element of slapstick comedy within this movie, which I have to say is a welcomed change to the more recent trend of over the top obnoxious humour we've been exposed to by the likes of the Lord himself, Adam Sandler. Now I have gushed my emotions like a love-struck 13 year old Tumblr user I feel that I should expand on my feelings.
First and foremost I'm going to talk about the writing and acting within this film as it pretty much hit the nail on the head. The story itself is at heart a buddy-cop comedy which in my humble opinion is a genre that has been stretched out using the same rinse and repeat formula for some years now, yet somehow the writers managed to make a script that not only felt fresh but also seemed somewhat original. The performances of the three leads (Gosling, Crowe and Rice) are exceptional and their on-screen chemistry is a wonder to behold, the way they bounced their lines off each other seemed so relaxed and natural. It was the lead's chemistry that really held this film together even in the story's weakest points, which came for me around the halfway mark.
The characters themselves are also a high point of the film for me as even though they are in essence all slightly over exaggerated caricatures of 70s stereotypes e.g: Gosling's hapless private detective character with more mustache than he has career prospects. It was also nice to see a change in what I'd expect to see from roles played by Gosling and to some extent Crowe who for this movie dropped their respective typecasting. Usually when it comes to a Gosling character I would expect equal parts romance & abs however in this film neither appear, instead Gosling more resembles a Jar Jar Binks-esque character with a bumbling nature. Crowe starts out as his usual unshaven badass character, a man who is willing to kill on a whim but as the film goes on and his relationship with Angourie Rice's character evolves he softens and for me this is what makes these characters' special, behind the slightly over the top nature of them there is a vulnerable human side to them to which makes it very easy to relate to them.
This brings me onto my final topic nicely as I want to talk about the action scenes within this film as they are definitely some of the best I've seen in a while. Fights are fast paced and fluid for a comedy film and the deaths are pretty brutal whilst maintaining a certain level of realism, for example if a character dies they don't get a monologue before their expiry. This brutal realism juxtaposed with over the top characters genuinely shocked me on a couple of occasions as, unlike in other unflinchingly violent films such as 'Saving Private Ryan' in which the characters all seem so fragile due to death being so prevalent, the characters in 'The Nice Guys' are so fanciful that you are lulled into presuming that they are invincible rendering the idea of their sudden and violent deaths even more shocking.
Overall I'd say that 'The Nice Guys' is a very entertaining film with a strong script and an excellent cast who have a great onscreen chemistry. It is also an exceedingly well shot film which truly immerses the viewer in it's setting as although I wasn't around in the 70's I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing that screams 70's like seedy porn, hippies and Ryan Gosling's mustache.
Scoring:
Final Score: 16
1-5 Wouldn't be out of place in a sewer
6-10 Pretty Bad
11-15 Good
16-20 Excellent
Footnote (to answer the questions nobody cares about):
Q - What is your favourite consonant cluster?
A- I am a personal fan of the classic 'yrgyz' cluster due to its wide variety of uses.
Q - In your opinion is there anything worse than a clown?
A - Yes, a marionette dressed as a clown in a potholing crevasse.
