Review #1,074: 'The Nice Guys' (2016)

Long before the term 'bromance' was coined, 80's and 90's action cinema was treating audiences to buddy movies, stories centred around a crime that would pull two opposite side of the spectrum together, causing them to disagree and bicker before finally learning that team-work is key. While desperate TV stations are attempting to re-boot various famous titles from this era with usually awful results, writer/director Shane Black is still around to remind us what made these movies so great to begin with. After all, he was behind some of the best of them - Lethal Weapon (1987) and The Last Boy Scout (1991) - and he's proving there's still plenty of life in the genre yet with The Nice Guys, one of the funniest films so far this year.

Naturally, a convoluted plot brings together the two heroes of the 70s-set story. One is a grizzled fists-for-hire, Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), who pays his bills by warning grown men who should know better to stay away from underage girls, traditionally with a knuckle-duster to the face. The other is Holland March (Ryan Gosling), a terrible private investigator who takes jobs from dementia-ridden old ladies who pay him to find the missing husband often resting behind them in an urn above the fireplace. His precocious daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) may also be a lot brighter than him. Despite their flaws, Healy and March are 'nice guys', and when their paths cross searching for a missing porn star, they decide to get to the bottom of a strange sequence of events because it's simply the right thing to do.

There's a conspiracy-laden plot to keep things ticking along, and Black has fun trying to unravel it along with our heroes. The film begins with a young boy finding his father's porn stash and sneaking a peak at centrefold Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio), before a car crashes off the road and into his backyard. Lo and behold, the driver is Misty, and the kid covers up her naked body as she dies. March is put on the case by the actress's aunt, and is soon on the tail of young runaway Amelia Kuttner (The Leftovers' Margaret Qualley), who is somehow caught up in all this mess. Only Amelia doesn't want to be found, so she pays Healy to get March off her back. Of course, the deliberately implausible story that brings our two heroes together - and what comes after - is simply an excuse for Crowe and Gosling to exercise their sparkling chemistry.

I've never seen Russell Crowe appear to be having so much fun as he does here, and he shows off some impressive comedy chops as the lovable lug who will always put himself in harms way to protect the vulnerable. Even more surprising is Gosling, an actor who hasn't really capitalised on the promise of his iconic role in Drive (2011), but who embraces the goofy scumbag-ness of his inept but endearingly well-meaning single father, a man we first meet inadvertently slashing his own wrist open while trying to routinely break in through a window. Yet the biggest plaudits go to Shane Black himself who, after a blip with Iron Man 3 (2013), is back to his Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) best. He delivers a fast-paced, intelligent and laugh-out-loud comedy thriller, with one or two genuine shocks thrown in for good measure.


Directed by: Shane Black
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Kim Basinger, Yaya DaCosta
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #946: 'L.A. Confidential' (1997)

Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential is a now long-established movie classic, regularly featuring in the various Top 100 lists drummed up by magazines and websites. But despite the impeccable performances from the film's three leads and writers Hanson and Brian Hengeland's firm grip on the labyrinthine plot, something about the film has never quite sat right with me. Don't get me wrong, I still think this is fantastic cinema and I've adored the few James Ellroy novels I've read (L.A. Confidential is adapted from the third book of his 'L.A. Quartet'), but some corny dialogue and flat cinematography weigh down what is ultimately an absorbing character piece.

There are a million stories in the city and it is the job of Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito), the editor of trashy magazine Hush-Hush, to find them. Celebrity cop Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) works on the side as 'technical advisor' for cop show Badge of Honor and is paid by Hudgens to bust celebrities in all sorts of compromising situations. It's Christmas, and Bud White (Russell Crowe) is buying liquor for the station when he stops by a house and beats on a man for doing the same to his wife. At the station, ambitious young cop Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is determined to live up to his father's reputation and refuses to be drawn in to the various exploits of his corrupt colleagues. When a group of Mexicans are brought in for assaulting two officers, the drunken officers assault them and the story hits the newspapers.

It's difficult to summarise the plot as the film is always moving forward, putting many pieces into play to the point where you struggle to figure out how it will all link together. The main crux of the film lies with a massacre at a diner called the Nite Owl, where many are killed along with White's ex-partner Dick Stensland (Graham Beckel) and a girl White met at Christmas. She looked beaten up, but Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger) assured him it wasn't what he thought. Also, with her at Christmas was Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn), a millionaire who runs an agency of hookers made to look like movie stars by plastic surgery. After the incident with the Mexicans, Exley becomes despised by his colleagues for testifying against those involved, particularly angering White after Stensland was shown the door, and forcing Vincennes to testify by threatening his work on Badge of Honor.

Acting out almost like vignettes, the various pieces of the puzzle stay apart for the majority of the film, and it's difficult to figure out what the plot actually is. But the way all these elements ingeniously blend together at the end is the film's main strength. Somehow, Hanson also manages to retain his grasp on the film's trio of complex leads, who are all heavily conflicted and psychologically scarred in some manner. Even Exley, who is a determined straight-arrow, concludes that circumstances often call for one's dark side to be embraced. It's a film noir more invested in the driving force at the core of its central characters than any crime committed, and a crime story more focused on the politicking of the higher-ups and the corruption that comes with it. Despite the occasional wobble, L.A. Confidential is still thrilling cinema 18 years on.


Directed by: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, David Strathairn
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie