By Brett Blake THE NICE GUYS, director Shane Black’s follow-up to KISS KISS BANG BANG and IRON MAN 3, is a total blast, a wonderfully irreverent and biting crime comedy that features Black’s usual razor-sharp writing and a pair of absolutely top-notch leading performances from two actors not particularly known for their comedic chops. The result is the most delightful time I’ve had at the movies this year. Set in the late 1970s, the plot of THE NICE GUYS primarily concerns Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), a low-level hired muscle, and Holland March (Ryan Gosling), an underachieving - and frequently drunk - private investigator, who find themselves drawn together in search of a missing girl, Amelia (Margaret Qualley), who - it turns out - is deeply connected to a complex scheme involving a dead pornstar, air pollution in Los Angeles, the Detroit auto industry, and a frighteningly-competent hitman called John Boy (Matt Bomer). With some assistance from March’s intrepid thirteen-year-old daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), Healy and March set out to navigate the deadly web of intrigue and get to the bottom of things before their own lives are cut short. As you might be able to tell from that, THE NICE GUYS is - at heart - a pulpy, noir detective story, complete with seedy personalities, shady dealings, corruption, murder, and other assorted felonies. Pulling us through are Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling; their chemistry together is absolutely fantastic, just as their individual performances and characterizations are equally impressive. We’ve never really seen this side of Crowe before, and he’s wonderful, bringing a sad, wounded quality to this beefy enforcer type, and his dry, understated, and exasperated reactions to the increasingly weird turn of events are thoroughly charming. Ryan Gosling, on the other hand, proves here that he’s a truly gifted physical comedian, imbuing his character with a goofy physicality that borders on slapstick... but in the very best way; there is a moment where Gosling discovers a dead body that is, hands down, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen him perform. Just as the chemistry between Crowe and Gosling is paramount to the movie’s success, so too is the chemistry between them and Angourie Rice’s Holly; a highly competent Nancy Drew type, Rice feels mature beyond her years, being more of a parent for her father than he is for her, while also longing to help him with his work… even as she recognizes the world he inhabits is, at best, morally ambiguous and, at worst, incredibly dangerous. Rice proves to be far more than just a kid sidekick, and her presence in the story is one of the more unexpectedly satisfying parts of the overall package. The genius of what Shane Black has done here - and yes, I would absolutely call it genius - is that the humor and comedy and shenanigans are all grounded in a real world. So often in comedies, you’re watching silly people who exist in a silly, fake movie-world that indulges the characters’ antics in ways that would never happen in real life (essentially movies where the characters don’t react as real people would). THE NICE GUYS, however, exists in a world not too dissimilar from our own (albeit set in the late '70s), with real and deadly stakes ready to explode after every one-liner or bit of physical comedy, and with a truly mean streak of violence and menace running underneath everything. This makes the humor even more of a pleasure, paradoxically, and it gives the movie a genuine edge of threat which allows the gags to hit even harder and to be even more satisfying. The people in this movie - as offbeat and weird as some of them are - could actually exist, and that is truly refreshing in an age where most comedies are dumbed-down to the point of being genuinely insulting. Los Angeles of the late 1970s is beautifully evoked, right down to the smog-choked atmosphere hovering over the city and the offbeat (some might say ugly) fashions worn by many of the players. Black doesn’t overdo the period elements to the point that they become silly or a parody, but the whole film truly has that Seventies vibe, even more so than some movies that were actually made in the Seventies. The cinematography has just enough grit and grain to convince one that THE NICE GUYS might have even been made somewhere around 1977, and the soundtrack elements - both the score by John Ottman and & David Buckley, and the song needle drops, which feature the likes of the Bee Gees, KISS, America, and Kool & The Gang - put you right back in that era. It’s worth noting here that somebody walking into THE NICE GUYS expecting the most hilarious and ribald comedy in the history of cinema will likely walk away disappointed. The movie is as much a weird mystery and thriller as it is a comedy, and Shane Black’s brand of humor might not be universal; speaking only for myself, I find this sort of comedy to be very much my speed, and while there might not have been too many moments where I found myself laughing uncontrollably, I did have a grin plastered on my face for basically the entire movie, which is far more than I can say for most supposed “comedies” of recent years. I found it thoroughly, consistently, completely enjoyable, a film that satisfies on any number of levels if you’re willing to go along for the ride.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
January 2023
Categories
All
|