Buddy pulp

‘The Nice Guys’ succeeds on the chemistry of its leads

Shane Black is responsible for several generations of seminal genre cinema. From “Lethal Weapon” and “Predator” to “Monster Squad” and “The Last Boy Scout,” the legendary screenwriter has always had comedy and action—and a weird affinity for the Christmas season—baked into his work, along with a predilection for densely-written plots. 

Black started directing his own co-scripted stories with 2005’s “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” an underseen noir comedy that starred a newly sober Robert Downey Jr. (with whom Black would reunite for “Iron Man 3”) and Val Kilmer. Those who loved the hilarious, rapid-fire chemistry Black elicited between Downey and Kilmer are bound to go apeshit for Black’s latest, “The Nice Guys.”

It’s Hollywood in 1977, and a porn star named Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio) is dead under mysterious circumstances.

The girl has an aunt (Lois Smith) who—claiming to have seen her niece alive two days after the ostensible accident—hires a hard-drinking, down-on-his-luck private investigator named Holland March (Ryan Gosling) to prove that she’s not dead. March is already working the case of another missing girl, Amelia Kutner (Margaret Qualley), which he believes might be related. 

March fortunately runs afoul of Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), an aging tough guy hired by Amelia to get March off her trail. “When you’re talking to your doctor tell him you have a spiral fracture,” he instructs March, just before breaking his arm. 

Suffering an existential malaise of his own, Healy and his beloved goldfish get roughed up by a pair of unknown enforcers (Keith David and Beau Knapp), who are also looking for Amelia. So he teams up with March to get to the bottom of their now-unified interests, while also giving Healy a shot at avenging his fish. 

Black is in Elmore Leonard territory here, creating a grittier spiritual successor to the Raymond Chandler-influenced “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” For Black, that means a typically multi-genre comedy that skewers the decay of Los Angeles and its eternally banal culture where gangsters are for sale, corruption is de rigueur, and the siren song of money and fame can inspire a 12 year-old kid to a career in porn.

Brought to life by Gosling’s and Crowe’s pitch-perfect chemistry, “The Nice Guys” delights in Black’s repeated forms. It’s a bro comedy, a convoluted noir, and a Hollyweird satire featuring idiots tumbling off of balconies, perfectly timed quips, bullet-riddled action sequences, and a healthy dose of pulp silliness. The only thing missing this time is Christmas.

Though Black’s troubling penchant for portraying women as party favors is once again on full display, he counters that this time around with Holly (Angourie Rice), March’s wise, headstrong teenage daughter who becomes the film’s unlikely hero. 

As the twisting plot, like a ride into the Hollywood Hills, wends its way to the solving of its mystery, the bond that grows between March and Healy captures us as well. The film is a web of laughs, thrills, and confident storytelling from which you won’t want to escape.

We’re Talking to You

On June 9, Circle Cinema and the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle will present a special screening of Martin Scorsese’s searing, nihilist 1976 masterpiece, “Taxi Driver,” which celebrates its 40^th anniversary this year. 

An insomniac ex-Marine named Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) begins to feel his sanity slip as he spends his nights driving a cab across the Dantean purgatory of lower Manhattan, a cesspool of misery populated by pimps, hookers, drug dealers and other assorted weirdos. That is, until he meets Betsy (Cybil Shepard), a gorgeous campaign worker who breaks through Travis’s brooding isolation, giving him hope for a real human connection.

See the still-amazing, still-relevant film in a gorgeous 2K remaster and stick around after the screening for a post-film Q&A with OFCC members Jeff Huston (icantunseethatmovie.com),
Michael Smith (Tulsa World), Adam Chitwood (Collider.com), and Joe O’Shansky (The Tulsa Voice)—followed by a drawing
to win special prizes.    

For more info visit www.circlecinema.com.

For more from Joe, read his 2016 summer movie preview.