“The Nice Guys,” writer-director Shane Black’s darkly entertaining R-rated homage to action movies of the 1970s, is not particularly nice. But it’s a whole lot nicer than many of the films that inspired it.
Low-rent L.A. private eye Holland March (Ryan Gosling, displaying admirable physical comedy chops) is a drunk and a screw-up, but he knows it. He stays just sober enough to care for his smarter-than-he-is 13-year-old daughter Holly (a terrific Angourie Rice). He willfully takes money from clients he should not – like the dotty old woman whose husband he agrees to find, even after noticing the man’s ashes in an urn over the fireplace. But he generally tries to steer clear of violence, and is constantly surprised when it breaks out around him.
He’s also remarkably quick to forgive.
When a strong-arm for hire named Jackson Healey (Russell Crowe, effectively underplaying) breaks the hapless PI’s arm to discourage him from searching further for a missing girl March has been hired to find, it isn’t long before the two scruffy misfits have teamed up together to find her.
It’s the missing girl (Margaret Qualley), it turns out, who originally hired Healey to scare away March, believing the PI to be one of the trained killers who’ve been on her trail. It’s something to do with an X-rated movie she recently made, one with an anti-automotive message, which has apparently put her in the sites bad guys representing Detroit, the L.A. porn industry, and possible the U.S. government.
The bad guys on her trail are seriously bad and flamboyantly villainous, especially Keith David as the stylish, leisure-suiter Older Guy, and Beau Knapp as the scarily demented Blueface. Then there’s John Boy (Matt Bomer), so named for a certain physical resemblance to Richard Thompson of “The Waltons.” All three play their part like it’s an audition for a remake of “Baretta” or “The Rockford Files.”
Crowe’s affable Healey, for his part, is a different kind of thug. A good-natured brute who hates bullies, he will rough up pretty much anyone for money, but prefers hurting those who abuse or threaten women and children. He’s the kind of guy who hurts people quickly – it’s just a job, right? – and then gives them helpful medical advice, all while warning them to shape up and be better people.
Black’s goofball lovefest of a script strongly suggests that the author was more than just inspired by the morally ambiguous, B-grade shoot-em-ups on which audiences thrived 40-plus years ago.
Shane Black clearly loves them.
“Dirty Harry.” ”Shaft.” “The Getaway.” “Fuzz.” “Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry.” Even the James Bond films of Roger Moore (“Live and Let Die,” “The Man with the Golden Gun,” “The Spy Who Loved Me”) and the fist-fueled martial arts movies of Bruce Lee (“Enter the Dragon,” etc.) could not have been born of any other decade than the 1970s.
“The Nice Guys” isn’t quite on some of those films’ level. As a wannabe ‘70s film, it never quite convinces us it’s some lost cinematic relic, recently discovered in a vault somewhere. Though set in 1977, and crammed with on-the-money period details, this off-the-wall under-the-radar alternative to superhero movies deliberately softens the coarser, cruder, blood-soaked extremes of the pulpiest ‘70s offerings, delivering instead a film that is willing to hint at their naughty extravagances, but also wants to avoid offending too many people.
Unless you’re a grindhouse purist, this mainstreaming of ‘70s pulp action flicks is not necessarily a bad thing. It is, in fact, the mainstreaming of fringe cinematic genres, in fact, that gave us “Casablanca,” “The Godfather,” and “Star Wars.”
Not that such philosophical musings are likely to cross your mind while taking in ‘The Nice Guys.” From its opening shots of ‘70s era Los Angeles, underscored by a delightfully funky instrumental re-edit of the Temptations “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” Black (“Lethal Weapon,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” “Iron Man III”) and co-writer Anthony Bagarozzi deliver a consistently engaging, frequently funny shaggy dog story.
“The Nice Guys” might not be all that nice, but all things considered, it’s really good.
Contact David at david.templeton@sonomanews.com.
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