"SKumm's Thoughts"
THE NICE GUYS (2016, R, 116 minutes, MISTY MOUNTAINS/WARNER
BROTHERS)
No one does a buddy-movie quite like Shane Black.
His dialogue, his action, is all so recognizable that you
know you are either watching something he wrote, directed, or both. LETHAL WEAPON, KISS KISS BANG BANG, THE LAST
BOYSCOUT—and now, you can add GUYS to the mix.
Problem is, he borrows from himself a little too much this time around.
Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe star as Holland March and
Jack Healey (respectively), two guys following a simple missing persons case
that gets a whole lot bigger as they bumble their way through the
conspiracy. Gosling plays March as a
private detective that gets through life by acting like he knows everything,
whereas Healey is hired muscle whose answer to most of his cases is a solid
punch to the face. Neither one is as
smart as they want to be, and neither as good as March’s daughter Holly
(Angourie Rice, the amazing young actress from THESE FINAL HOURS—an Australian
end-of-the-world flick available on Netflix) (hint, hint) wants them to aspire
to be.
The film is chock full of sarcasm and dark humor. Some of the best bits involve our two heroes
responding to a particular situation the way any selfish cad would. If anything, Black is never all that kind to
his main characters; he exploits their weaknesses, guiding them toward some
sense of resolution that sometimes feels rather unfulfilling. And he has never been more repetitious than
he is here, either. It works—for the
most part. Yet there are still some
familiar scenarios which hint at prior works, almost as if he is giving himself
a nod. The foul-mouthed daughter from
BOYSCOUT? There are traces of her in
Holly. Remember Riggs from WEAPON, and
the dead wife subplot? It’s here, too.
And the surprising thing is that Black has had this script
for years. He supposedly re-worked it a
few times, until finally setting the film in the 1970’s. The era works well for the story, and allows
for a few jokes that play on how things are now, compared to that bygone era of
disco hair and questionable ethics (like those don’t exist today—hell, my hair
gets bigger every stinkin’ time I wash it).
So he had plenty of opportunity to wash away some of those repeated
similarities and subplots.
Yet the one thing that works best, as it does in every Black
odd couple film, is the casting of the leads.
There is an undeniable chemistry between Gosling and Crowe which drives
the film. Sometimes you don’t really
care what’s going on with the plot, so long as you get to keep watching them
interact with each other.
Yes, there are obvious plot points that you question (March
isn’t handling the single daddy bit all that well, and, if you are a parent,
you may find yourself squirming a bit at some of his choices), and the mystery
here is sometimes deeper than it really should be. But there is a lot that does work, and it is worth it just to see
the three leads working together.
Hollywood can churn out a lot of turds; if the characters
don’t work well together, it can come off as hollow (see Black’s only bad
script, THE LAST ACTION HERO, if you want a prime example). However, Black gets back to basics here, and
you should be grateful for it—his next film is a reboot of the “Predator”
series, and Predators tend not to bumble.
Or crack wise. Or lock their kid
in the trunk…
