#15 – The Nice Guys (2016) Review – I think it’s interesting

Director: Shane Black

Starring: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Keith David, Margaret Qualley & Kim Basinger

The Plot

The nice guys is a noir style Detective action/comedy film from 2016. The film is set in 1970’s Los Angeles. The film follows the unlikely pair of Holland March (Gosling) and Jackson Healy (Crowe) as they take on a case of a missing girl. As the private eyes uncover conspiracies, crash parties, investigate the porn industry in the search of Amelia. The pair are assisted by March’s 13 year old daughter on their first case together.

My Thoughts Spoilers

I just watched this film again recently and it’s as brilliant as I remember it being. The Nice guys is jam packed full of funny moments and puts Crowe and Gosling in hilarious situations throughout the film. The film is an excellent Detective film wrapped in a perfect action/comedy film. It’s such a joy to watch this film, there’s hardly a space to finish laughing from one joke until the next funny moment. There’s at least a dozen times watching this film I’ve got a pain in my stomach from laughing so hard. The characters are so well developed and the comedy comes at you from the first time we see them.

The Cast

Russell Crowe is brilliant as Jackson Healy. Right from the get go big burly Russell Crowe shows up on the screen and he’s great. He’s beating people up for money, he’s a tough guy for hire and he’s just so sluggish and beaten down by life but he still wants to do something great, maybe get his PI licence and do something good, something that actually matters and makes a difference. Enter Holland March

Ryan Gosling steals the film as loveable loser
Holland March

Ryan Gosling is Holland March. A Private Eye who will never be happy or so he writes in his drunken state. We see Holland wake up in the tub with his suit on and he and his daughter get mixed up with and befriend Healy. March is the best kind of fuck up, he makes a mess of everything but it always ends up helping the overall plan and solving the case somehow. March is so sincere in everything he says and does and if only he knew how goddamn ridiculous he was being. Goddamn its fun to watch March stumble his way deeper into the investigation they get involved in. When March punches his fist through the glass in the back door of a bar and hits a main artery and nearly dies in an ambulance I mean what the fuck it’s the funniest scene and always kills me whenever I see it no matter how many times I’ve seen it.

Angourie Rice! I mean this girl can act. She’s fantastic in this film, she’s great with Crowe and Gosling in all their scenes. She better be in more movies in the future because this girl is so goddamn funny. She’s also the best investigator of the trio on display in this movie. She’s smart, she’s witty, she’s cool and she’s tracking down the missing Amelia better than Healy and her dad. I want to see her in a Tarantino movie or something, she’s the bombdigadydoo.

More of my thoughts

This movie is so underrated. The nice guys is a modern classic or the action/comedy genre. The nice guys has so many unbelievably side splittingly funny scenes. The pairing of Crowe and Gosling is incredible. I’ve mostly seen these two in dramas and thrillers and the way they transitioned to comedy is outrageous. They have no right being as hilarious and perfect a duo as they are in this film.

The party crashing scene is one of my favourites. From Gosling getting drunk and searching for Amelia to Crowe doing his best to do his job and get Holly out of the porn party they’re attending. Gosling is swimming through a pool trying to interview mermaids and he’s flying off balconies pretending to be a cowboy and discovering and hastily disposing of dead bodies onto a party next door. Oh fuck this film is great.

Watch it, watch it watch it

Make the sequel!

We need it

We want it

We deserve it

Oh my god there needs to be more of theae characters on other cases and following them through the chaos of it all.