Review of The Nice Guys (2016) by Foxgrove — 04 Jun 2016

The Nice Guys is a sort of homage to the buddy movies that were a product of the seventies, something akin to ‘Freebie and the Bean’, complete with 70’s background music that almost screams ‘A Quinn Martin production’.

Unfortunately, the film is not half as funny as it thinks it is and the plot is undecipherable if your attention wanders even for a moment. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling take their cue from the inflated script and their performances, whilst engaging, are seriously over indulgent.

Kim Basinger pops up in a key supporting role to little effect reminding one, fleetingly, of her superior Oscar winning turn in the much better ‘L A Confidential’. Of Angourie Rice playing Gosling’s daughter the less said the better although, to be fair, she is saddled with a lot of ‘adult’ dialogue which comes over as too clever by half when eliciting from her young mouth.

The film does have a few impressively amusing sight gags and as a throwaway popcorn movie it is at least watchable. However, despite the blood and violence of its muscular exterior, what we really have here is trivial.