The Nice Guys: 10 Reasons It's The Most Overrated Film Of The Year

10. The '70s Setting Feels Wasted & Underutilized

One of The Nice Guys' "things" is that it's set in the '70s. That's one of the elements you mention when somebody casually ask you what the film is about in their attempt to weigh up whether they should go see it. You say: "It's a detective film set in the '70s, with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling." It's a selling point.

And yet despite the '70s setting, Shane Black's latest film doesn't really embrace the aesthetic of the time period to the point where the movie feels authentic to the year it's supposed to be set in (which is 1977): given the semi-dark nature of the story, its rendering of Los Angeles is too cheesy - cartoonish, even - caught between trying to appear both realistic and touristic at once.

Black tries to make it work, of course: the font used during the opening credits is '70-ish, there are appropriately obvious cuts on the soundtrack, and smog is mentioned a bunch of times ('70s L.A. was very smoggy, in case you didn't know). People are dressed like it's the '70s, too, but the movie's overall attempt to bring this period to life falls flat. There's not enough attention to detail to create the seedy atmosphere that The Nice Guys needs in order to make us believe.