The Nice Guys Review: 4 Ups And 1 Down
It's great. And stuff.
Rating:
F*cking yes! The Nice Guys, Shane Black's new, seventies-set comedy-thriller has been on my radar ever since its first trailer dropped a few months ago; in fact, I've been so excited I've avoided later trailers lest its best jokes be ruined by the marketing (although I would recommend checking out the awesome little animated trailer for it to get yourself in the mood).
The basic plot is primo Shane Black; we follows Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe faux-hardboiled detectives as they try to solve a twisting mystery involving a dead porn star and a missing girl in 1970s L.A. And, in a wonderful turn, it totally lives up to the hype; it's funny, it's tense, it's exhilarating and it's one of the best experiences to be had in a cinema in 2016.
Above all, the biggest takeaway is that Black clearly just loves movies; The Nice Guys has classic detective thrillers running through its veins and the sharply comedic writer has great fun sending up conventions with genre allusions and gleeful subversion (watch out for his twist on the "bitch fight"). And I loved it just as much.
So let's take a deeper look at the film, taking in four ups (and, because it's not quite perfect, one down) from The Nice Guys.