The Nice GuysThere's no handbook for doing the right thing; sometimes it means flailing around in the moral darkness before you hit the nail on the head. The Nice Guys is the story about private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling) and enforcer-for-hire Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), two very different men who cross paths due to their mutual commissions revolving around a girl named Amelia (Margaret Qualley)It is at first in a mildly adversarial vein, but becomes a partnership by necessity to save the young runaway from a potentially lethal fate, as her fellow accomplices in her own secret enterprise have met before her.
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Set in the swinging Seventies in a smog-ridden Los Angeles, The Nice Guys is a callback to both an era of "buddy" films and detective stories. The plot is one which continuously goes deeper and deeper into conspiracy; what starts as a missing persons case gradually involves all kinds of levels of corruption and depravity in Hollywood and beyond. Before long, March and Healy find themselves involved with pornographers, environmentalists, hitmen, and even the Department of Justice in the form of Judith Kutner (Kim Basinger). Stray elements and moments taking place around the duo come back to tie into their investigation. The film opens with a fatal car crash involving pornographic actress "Misty Mountains" (Murielle Telio); her aunt hires March to find Misty following what the near-blind woman thought she saw days after her niece's death. As March and Healy discover that these two seemingly disparate events are related, they end up pulling on the loose thread, unraveling the proverbial sweater in the process. The casting decisions in The Nice Guys are also significant, recalling other films from the stars' respective works; small coincidence that this film features Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger, both of whom starred together in another period piece detective story set in Los Angeles, L.A. Confidential, which also dealt heavily in similar themes, laden in conspiracy. And one of Ryan Gosling's most memorable turns as a driver for hire on the streets of L.A. in Drive is relevant, if a bit ironic, as March is usually far too drunk to drive safely, even falling asleep at the wheel at a crucial point. Writer and director Shane Black, whose screenwriting credits include one of the most recognizable of buddy cop movies, Lethal Weapon, contributes his familiar brand of action and comedic wit to The Nice Guys. Shane Black's body of work often revolves around Los Angeles; even in 1977, the city feels like an organic--if manic--element of the story, a place where lots of action, intrigue, and excitement abounds--the place where detective stories and conspiracies by movers and shakers are a part of the setting.
Perhaps the most obvious inspiration for The Nice Guys is the classic conspiratorial detective story, The Big Sleep. Both movies feature the same kind of seedy underbelly of the "City of Angels", and both also feature a complex plot in which multiple elements cross paths, and conflict ensues when wiping away the illusions placed by the puppet masters operating from the shadows. The Nice Guys also recalls Robert Altman's adaptation of a Philip Marlowe story, The Long Goodbye. Also set in Seventies-era L.A., the detective of the story feels a bit like an anachronism, a bit out of his time; and although March and Healy are a presumably dressed appropriately for the disco era period piece, these two are also somewhat out of sync with the changing times. March is a widower, caring for his daughter Holly (Angourie Rice), who herself has shades of "Nancy Drew" to her. Healy lives alone in an apartment above a comedy club, memorizing vocabulary from a word-a-day calendar, associating them with his bitterness toward his unfaithful ex-wife. Both men have events from their respective pasts which have kept them anchored in their own mires, preventing them from moving forward in their lives. March is an alcoholic, who often indulges at the most inappropriate, even detrimental of times, whereas Healy expresses his rage through violence, as if looking for a reason to hit someone. For them, the current age is dominated by youth, very young, but often engaged in very mature activity, from sex and drugs, to foul language and more. Healy's introduction is one where he is tasked to "dissuade" a pederast from seeing a thirteen year-old girl, where the man has been offering marijuana to her to lower her defenses. The boy who initially discovers the body of Misty Mountain had only moments prior been flipping through a porno mag, uncovering a centerfold of the adult actress before seeing her in the same pose moments before her passing. And when Holly sneaks along with March and Healy to a sleazy Hollywood party, a couple of perverts show her a pornographic movie, and the film's starlet describes sexual positions to her in a matter-of-fact way. Jarring as this is, the youthfulness of the kids compared to the older detectives is meant to show that to these men, the younger generation will always appear as kids, regardless of their age; a dad's daughter will always be his little girl, as the saying goes, and kids grow up too fast in any generation. Conversely, Holly is effectively the moral center of The Nice Guys, trying to save her would-be assassin after he is hit by a car rather than letting him bleed to death, or openly criticizing her father's escapism into the bottle and mercenary attitude toward his investigations. Amelia turns out to be working with a group of activists, protesting the conditions of pollution prevalent in L.A. in 1977. She is passionate about her cause, even if it is potentially motivated by her acrimonious relationship with her mother. Even the young boy who finds the dying Misty Mountains decently covers her exposed chest with his shirt. So for all the filth that the next generation has to swim through to come up for air, their sense of right and wrong is often more clear than their predecessors, a lesson which March and Healy have to accept as they uncover the truth.
Recommended for: Fans of an explosive and sharply funny (and sometimes awkwardly funny) buddy detective story, with lots of action, comedy, and style, set in the groovy Seventies of L.A.
Perhaps the most obvious inspiration for The Nice Guys is the classic conspiratorial detective story, The Big Sleep. Both movies feature the same kind of seedy underbelly of the "City of Angels", and both also feature a complex plot in which multiple elements cross paths, and conflict ensues when wiping away the illusions placed by the puppet masters operating from the shadows. The Nice Guys also recalls Robert Altman's adaptation of a Philip Marlowe story, The Long Goodbye. Also set in Seventies-era L.A., the detective of the story feels a bit like an anachronism, a bit out of his time; and although March and Healy are a presumably dressed appropriately for the disco era period piece, these two are also somewhat out of sync with the changing times. March is a widower, caring for his daughter Holly (Angourie Rice), who herself has shades of "Nancy Drew" to her. Healy lives alone in an apartment above a comedy club, memorizing vocabulary from a word-a-day calendar, associating them with his bitterness toward his unfaithful ex-wife. Both men have events from their respective pasts which have kept them anchored in their own mires, preventing them from moving forward in their lives. March is an alcoholic, who often indulges at the most inappropriate, even detrimental of times, whereas Healy expresses his rage through violence, as if looking for a reason to hit someone. For them, the current age is dominated by youth, very young, but often engaged in very mature activity, from sex and drugs, to foul language and more. Healy's introduction is one where he is tasked to "dissuade" a pederast from seeing a thirteen year-old girl, where the man has been offering marijuana to her to lower her defenses. The boy who initially discovers the body of Misty Mountain had only moments prior been flipping through a porno mag, uncovering a centerfold of the adult actress before seeing her in the same pose moments before her passing. And when Holly sneaks along with March and Healy to a sleazy Hollywood party, a couple of perverts show her a pornographic movie, and the film's starlet describes sexual positions to her in a matter-of-fact way. Jarring as this is, the youthfulness of the kids compared to the older detectives is meant to show that to these men, the younger generation will always appear as kids, regardless of their age; a dad's daughter will always be his little girl, as the saying goes, and kids grow up too fast in any generation. Conversely, Holly is effectively the moral center of The Nice Guys, trying to save her would-be assassin after he is hit by a car rather than letting him bleed to death, or openly criticizing her father's escapism into the bottle and mercenary attitude toward his investigations. Amelia turns out to be working with a group of activists, protesting the conditions of pollution prevalent in L.A. in 1977. She is passionate about her cause, even if it is potentially motivated by her acrimonious relationship with her mother. Even the young boy who finds the dying Misty Mountains decently covers her exposed chest with his shirt. So for all the filth that the next generation has to swim through to come up for air, their sense of right and wrong is often more clear than their predecessors, a lesson which March and Healy have to accept as they uncover the truth.
Recommended for: Fans of an explosive and sharply funny (and sometimes awkwardly funny) buddy detective story, with lots of action, comedy, and style, set in the groovy Seventies of L.A.