The Nice Guys Review

With so many superhero movies, sequels and reboots this year, it's normally a breath of fresh air to see a comedy movie that doesn't fall into any of the later. Unfortunately most of them aren't that good - fortunately The Nice Guys doesn't fall into that category.

The Nice Guys is about a PI Detective and an enforcer who come together to find a girl, Amelia. To try and sum up the plot here is a nice little paragraph wouldn't be to easy and if you really want to know the whole plot, just see the movie.

This is Shane Black's third movie in which he has directed (the other two being Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3). Black has had a long history with buddy cop movies as his first production credit was for writing Lethal Weapon. Even with all the experience within the genre Black manages to prevent creative stagnation so we don't see the same movie that has been done before. His writing is more on show here but if someone else directed this movie it wouldn't have the same vibe. Black has created a movie that, even though set in the 1970s feels fresh.

The movie does however take a bit of time to find its stride. It suffers from a bit of exposition at the beginning. The rest of the movie moves along at a fine and brisk pace that won't have you looking at your watch for two hours.

Russell Crowe (the enforcer) and Ryan Gosling (the PI) each play their parts to their abilities and it results in some great chemistry. Admittedly these are two actors that you wouldn't think of starring in a movie together but i'm glad it ended up happening. Both of their characters are fleshed out over the movie to really add depth and the movie finds gets some great moments out of it. One of the real stars in the movie is actually Angourie Rice who plays Gosling's daughter. Both character and performance become scene stealers in movie, and like Gosling and Crowe her character is too fleshed out and three become a great trio.

The movie is also lucky to have no bad performances in the rest of the supporting cast, but they aren't entirely rememberable. The rest of the cast includes Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley and Kim Basinger.

Of course being a comedy movie you would expect jokes and they are a plenty here. Black doesn't go for the predicted comedy to create jokes that are actually funny. I just wish more movies were made like this.

As I write this The Nice Guys has only made $28.6 million from its $50 million budget, so go out and see this movie.

Overall score: 9/10

Director: Shane Black

Writer: Shane Black and Anthony Bagarozzi

Starring: Russel Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley and Kim Basinger

Cinematography: Philippe Rousselot

Editing: Joel Negron

Music/Score: David Buckley and John Ottman