The Nice Guys

Gosling and Crowe in The Nice Guys. I bet their agents spent weeks discussing who got first billing.

The Nice Guys is a buddy movie set in the 1970s, about two private detectives brought together in a search for a woman, involving corruption, a dead porn star and the car industry.

It’s like a less weird Big Lebowski or a more funny (and superior) Inherent Vice; it doesn’t really matter what they are searching for; you’re along for a ride with some fun characters.  The missing girl and the porn film are just Macguffins.

Both Crowe (with The Water Diviner) and Gosling (with Lost River) have directed films recently, so you imagine they’re just relaxing and having fun here.  It’s written and directed by Shane Black, who pretty much invented the 80s buddy movie genre with Lethal Weapon, and appeared in Predator (he’s writing the new Predator movie, too). It’s tremendous fun; I seriously can’t remember the last time I laughed so much in a cinema.

Crowe and Gosling, and a small but pivotal role from Kim Basinger (who starred with Crowe in LA Confidential), the cast is largely young unknowns, who all do a good job, but special mention should go to Angourie Rice, who plays Gosling’s daughter Holly, a superb character who gets most of the work done while the two leads stumble upon clues.

My girlfriend said she thought Ryan Reynolds was really good in it. I said Ryan Gosling was better.  It’s Ryan Phillipe I feel sorry for; he doesn’t even get mistaken for anyone now.

Though set in LA it was largely shot in Georgia; a state increasingly used for film production; they obviously give generous tax breaks.

I enjoyed The Nice Guys far more than I expected; I didn’t think it would be bad, but it’s really, really good.  A great midweek post work movie.