‘The Nice Guys’ Review: Mystery and Mismatched Sleuths

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe team up to investigate a disappearance in floozy-filled 1970s Los Angeles

Joe Morgenstern

The Wall Street Journal

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Biography Joe Morgenstern
@JoeMorgenstern
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May 19, 2016 2:11 p.m. ET

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Everything has its own illogic in “The Nice Guys,” a consistently entertaining, frequently violent and generally slapdash action comedy directed by Shane Black from a script he wrote with Anthony Bagarozzi. The setting is late-1970s Los Angeles, where smog alerts are frequent and a dim bulb of a private eye, Holland March ( Ryan Gosling), teams up with a dim brute of an enforcer, Jackson Healy ( Russell Crowe), to investigate a disappearance and apparent murder in a befuddling milieu of strippers, hookers and two-bit porn stars.

Action comedies with mismatched buddies come readily to Mr. Black. He first made his mark in Hollywood 30 years ago by selling the script for “Lethal Weapon,” which starred Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. A decade ago he wrote and directed “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” with Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan. “The Nice Guys” can’t match the brilliant absurdity of that latter film. The plot makes little more than sporadic sense, and none at all when it veers off to follow Kim Basinger as a Justice Department prosecutor tracking down a conspiracy by Detroit auto makers to resist catalytic converters that might reduce smog alerts.

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in ‘The Nice Guys’ Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

Still, the co-stars get to use their comic chops, which are impressive at the least and delicious in Mr. Gosling’s case. In his best scene—and this doesn’t constitute a spoiler—Holland takes an epic pratfall, loses his gun and then loses his power of speech when he discovers an especially bloody corpse sitting next to him. (His desperate efforts to call out reminded me of Lou Costello.) “The Nice Guys” also reveals a star in the making—Angourie Rice, who plays Holly, Holland’s precocious 13-year-old daughter. Holly is really the brains of the buddies’ operation, and young Ms. Rice is the calm center of the movie, taking in its garish lunacies with a beautifully steadfast gaze.

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‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)

Russell Crowe is the brooding, brutal Bud White, a cop consigned to muscle jobs, but a chivalrous soul all the same. Curtis Hanson directed, with the authority of a master, and worked with Brian Helgeland on the exemplary adaptation of the James Ellroy novel. The distinguished cast includes Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, Danny DeVito, David Strathairn, Ron Rifkin and a touchingly vulnerable Kim Basinger. Jeannine Oppewall designed the production. Dante Spinotti did the marvelously atmospheric cinematography.

Write to Joe Morgenstern at [email protected]

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6 comments

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Kenneth D. Gough subscriber

I saw it. Not a complete waste of time and money, but with so much talent available, you expect better. Kim Basinger, in particular, was wasted. The plot, such as it is, is ludicrous. As a farce it might have worked, but not as a semi-comedic film. Brutal and coarse. It just wound up demonizing the car industry and intimated the Justice Department is corrupt and would stop at nothing to - oh, wait a minute.....

MARC DELAMATER subscriber

I saw The Nice Guys, and it was mildly amusing. However, I have noticed that director- screenwriter Shane Black likes to hop onto certain hobby-horses and ride them into the rhetorical sunset.

In The Last Boy Scout, it was the NFL and big league football.

In Iron Man 3, it was the global war on terror wherein he transforms super- villain The Mandarin into a buffoonish British B-actor.

In Lethal Weapon 2, it was South Africa, an easy target, as well as tuna fishing and condom commercials.

In The Nice Guy, it is Detroit and the "big three" auto industry which I found particularly egregious and belabored, even by Mr. Black's standards.

I find this use of "straw-men" and "safe targets" to create conflict to be quite lazy and formulaic not matter how clever and cute the dialogue and relationships.

Matthew Ondre subscriber

Am I the only one who notices that Morgenstern pays a little too much attention to teen females in his reviews? If one is present, detract at least one star. He's tricked me far too many times.

Rodrick Su subscriber

@Matthew Ondre In this particular case, the actress playing Holly March gave the best performance of the movie. She really is that good.

Mary Fergurson subscriber

If Ryan Gosling is in it, I will buy a ticket! This man's acting skills are underappreciated.

William O'Connor subscriber

The review almost had me ticket hunting until it turns out that the hero (we can't say heroine, right?) is a 13 year old child. Pubescent maturity is vanishingly seldom seen in the world outside of a dark room with the smell of popcorn.

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