The Nice Guys

OK, we are within the early weeks of the summer movie season and I have only one question: where are the summer flicks? I saw one film last week, because there wasn't much else on that I already hadn't seen. The dead zone is over Hollywood, or is it? Action comedies are something that needs to be tapped into more than we've seen in the past. We've seen a handful: the "Lethal Weapon" franchise, "Last Action Hero", even the "Die Hard" franchise, but not very much since. Since we now live in stressful times, this combination of action and comedy is something that would be an audience pleaser. So now, we have in the offing, "The Nice Guys" to regain that genre, but does this film succeed?

Set against the backdrop of 1977 Los Angeles, this story opens when single father and licensed PI Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is hired to investigate the apparent suicide of famous porn star Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio) by the star's aunt, Mrs. Glenn (Lois Smith). As the trail leads him to a girl named Amelia Kuttner (Margaret Qualley), he encounters less licensed and less hands-off private eye Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) and his brass knuckles. However, the situation takes a turn for the worse when Amelia vanishes and it becomes apparent that March wasn't the only party interested-- as was the mysterious man named John Boy (Matt Bomer). As both men are forced to team up, they'll have to take on a world filled with eccentric goons, strippers dressed as mermaids, thugs and even a possible government conspiracy.

Others to round out the cast are Angourie Rice as Holly March, Holland's precocious 13-year-old daughter, Yaya DeCosta as Tally, Keith David as Older Guy, Beau Knapp as Blueface, Gil Gerard as Bergen Paulsen, Daisy Tahan as Jessica, Kim Basinger as Judith Kuttner, Amelia's mother and Jack Kilmer as Chet.

This was slickly directed by veteran action writer, Shane Black ("Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" '05, "Iron Man 3" '13, "Edge" (TV movie) '15). This filmmaker knows how to get his actors to give the appearance they're in grave danger, but do it in a humorous way. There aren't too many directors out there that can achieve this. Of course, both Crowe and Gosling are gifted actors, this is still the mark of a honed director. He has a couple of future films he's directed to be released, so it will be interesting to see how he does with them. It was written by Black and Anthony Bagarozzi which is actually where the problem ensues. Bagarozzi has no other writing experience except this, so I wonder if Black had solely written this film, would it had been a better script? I'm sure Black had the 'lion's share' of the input in this considering his wide body of work, but it begs the question: could this non-seasoned writer influenced him to a point where this just didn't have the cohesiveness and continuity it should have had? I realize this was a dry comedy, however a good deal of the comedic lines seemed forced. The actors in this performed as well as they could considering the script at hand, so even they couldn't save it. Although there were definitely funny moments in this, overall it  assuredly needed an overhaul.

Certainly the trailer of this was far better than the final film, but maybe Shane Black could write a better script if he would go back to writing them solo. This wasn't terrible, but it just wasn't great either, so if you like these actors, you'll be able to forgive a questionable script, otherwise rent or Netflix this.

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                                   Rated: R                                      116mins.