Films come and films go, and while some that barely seem worthy of attention get franchises that seemingly twirl off into infinity, other, more worthy examples are cursed to only remain firmly in the one-and-done phase until the end of existence. One such example is the unfeasibly witty double act of Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer that appeared in Shane Black’s magnificent neo-noir, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, that frustratingly stalled at the first installment despite being virtually flawless.
However, this sort of poor luck seems to follow Black around like a fucking shroud of death, because after he made Marvel a ton of dough with the fantastic Iron Man 3 (deal with it), he opted to go down the comedic, crime buddy movie route once again with The Nice Guys, a film that seemingly came complete with all of the director’s strengths and none of his weaknesses. Well, none except being agonisingly adept at being ignored at the box office – but while it was irritating the first time it happened, the fact that The Nice Guys never got a sequel is one of the greatest cinematic crimes of the last twenty years or so and I genuinely don’t think I’ll ever be over it.
Welcome to the smog choked world of Los Angeles circa 1977 where an amusingly convoluted string of events are set in motion when a porn actress named Misty Mountains is found dead after her car leaves the road and ploughs through someone’s house. Running parallel to this incident are the lives of two, down on their luck bottom feeders who are about to have a very painful chance meeting and the first is scumbag private eye Holland March who tries to juggle his teenage daughter, a drinking problem and a healthy dollop of self loathing as he takes the case of Misty Mountains’ elderly aunt who claims she saw her niece alive and well after her death and his investigations have led him to the door of fellow “actress” Amelia Kuttner. However, Amelia is the jittery type and hires thuggish enforcer, Jackson Healy to ensure that Holland stops prying into her affairs.
While Jackson dutifully does what he is paid for by giving Holland a spiral fracture, he’s always been fairly curious about the private eye game and is actually looking to improve his life beyond beating people up for money despite being a reformed alcoholic. However, when Jackson is braced in his apartment by two heavies who are also looking for Amelia, he decides to enlist Holland to find her once again as he believes there’s a conspiracy going on with her at the middle.
Before you know it, the two are covering typical buddy movie conventions with style as they stumble their way through a strangely complex caper involving pornographic filmmakers, anti-pollution campaigners, the automotive industry and trippy dream sequences about a wise-talking killer bee named Bumble – but as things gets ever more chaotic and ludicrous, can these “nice guys” avoid finishing last?
Even though it sounds scientifically impossible, there’s a very good chance that The Nice Guys may actually be superior to Black’s other smack talking masterpiece, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, because at times it riffs heavily on yet another example of the filmmaker’s previous work that demanded a sequel we never got – the script he penned to Tony Scott’s bombastic The Last Boy Scout. That under-appreciated 90s barn burster also dealt with a super-flawed anti-heroes with booze issues, inferiority complexs and some amusingly questionable parenting as Holland’s precocious daughter seems even more enthusiastic to crack the case than the adults. There’s even a spiritual callback to the self loathing mantra that Bruce Willis’ Joe Hallenbeck as Ryan Gosling’s whimpering lead has the phrase “you will never be happy” scrawled on his hand in permanent marker while the 70s setting lets everyone smoke like proverbial chimneys and drink and drive like it’s going out of fashion.
Obviously, Black’s muscular script brings all the aspects we’ve come to expect from the auteur such as bizarre slapstick, spirited action and more near-perfect wise cracks crammed into one movie that some franchises struggle to equal for their entire duration. However, while the words are fantastic, they’re only as good as the actors who deliver them and in the unlikely pairing of Gosling and a thoroughly world weary looking Russell Crowe, they find flawless conduits. Crowe, for example, seems to have found a character that hues close to a more amicable Bud White from LA Confidential, insofar that he’s a very violent, bitter man who longs for redemption – however, while Bud was much more of a blunt instrument, Jackson wears his soul more on his sleeve and bonds sweetly with Holland’s daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) even though he has the capacity to murder a scummy henchman with his bare hands and utter congealed lumps of bitterness such as “Marriage is buying a house for someone you hate”.
On the flipside, Gosling is something of a goddamn comedy revelation as he embraces his inner schmuck and steadfastly refuses to let go. From blurting out classic Black-isms like “You know who else was just following orders? Adolf Hitler.” and clumsily slicing his wrist open while trying to simply break open a window, to displaying the kind of physical genius usually displayed by comedy legends of days gone by, he effortlessly channels the skills of Charlie Chaplin and Lou Costello into his performance. Watching him struggle to keep a toilet door open while keeping a gun trained on someone as his cigarette drops into his lowered trousers proves to be just as delightful as watching the zig zagging plot get eventually straightened out thanks to some a mixture of decent detective work and sheer, idiotic, dumb luck.
In fact, while the plot is typically the sort of pulp, multi-headed beast that plays like James Ellroy meets Buster Keaton, Black ensures that it remains gloriously unPC as it winds itself through porn parties, gunfights and ends up on a strangely cheerful down note. However, a cast that features such up and comers as Margaret Qualley and seasoned pros as Keith David and – in something of a LA Confidential reunion – Kim Basinger succeeds in add the required lived in character that such a film demands.
To double down on my earlier point, I truly believe that no other film made this century has deserved a sequel more than The Nice Guys and while I may be biased because so many of Black’s other projects were also deserving of a nice and robust follow up (are you telling me you wouldn’t want to spend more again with Charly Baltimore and Mitch Henessey from The Long Kiss Goodnight?), there’s something legitimately unfair that the team of Healy and March remain without a sophomore case for us to embrace.
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