The Nice Guys

Set in 1977, The Nice Guys follows private investigators Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) and Holland March (Ryan Gosling) as they reluctantly team up to find a missing girl (Margaret Qualley’s Amelia Kuttner) – with the increasingly complex case bringing the mismatched pair in contact with a whole host of off-kilter (and, often, thoroughly menacing) figures. It’s clear virtually from the outset that The Nice Guys‘ weakest link is its often impenetrable narrative, as writer/director Shane Black offers up an investigation that takes an almost immeasurable number of twists and turns and, in the process, becomes less and less interesting as time progresses (ie the case is, after a while, all but impossible to comfortably follow). There’s little doubt, then, that The Nice Guys‘ greatest asset is the utterly irresistible chemistry between Crowe and Gosling’s respective characters, with Healy and March’s almost astonishingly entertaining rapport sustaining the viewer’s interest even through the movie’s more indecipherable stretches. Black’s thoroughly irreverent approach likewise ensures that the movie is packed with memorable images and sequences (eg Healy and March’s efforts to hide a body go disastrously (and hilariously) awry), and yet it’s hard to deny that The Nice Guys ultimately wears out its welcome due to a protracted third act that feels, at times, somewhat endless (ie the film continues long after passing a point at which it could naturally conclude) – which ultimately prevents the movie from becoming anything more than a sporadically entertaining, exceedingly well-acted diversion.

**1/2 out of ****