The Nice Guys

A teen-aged boy sneaks into his parents room while they are sleeping and sneaks out with an adult magazine.  He opens the centerfold and there is Misty Mountains.  Moments later, a car crashes through the house and continues down the hillside.  The boy quickly investigates and, to his great surprise, there is Misty Mountains lying next to the wreck in exactly the same pose as the centerfold!  "How do you like my car, big boy?" she asks, then dies.  Holland March (Ryan Gosling) has been hired by Misty's aunt to find Misty.  The aunt swears that she saw Misty two days after her death.  He has a lead about a woman named Amelia.  Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) has been hired to convince March to drop the case.  Thus, the two protagonists meet as adversaries.  However, it soon becomes clear that everyone involved in Misty's last film is being killed.  March and Healy join forces to solve the case.

 

Of course, the American auto industry is the villain of the movie.  Misty's latest movie was going to expose Detroit's conspiracy to suppress technology that would reduce air pollution.  They were so determined to suppress this knowledge that they sent a variety of assassins to kill filmmakers and destroy all copies of the film.  Yes, yet again American industry is the bad guy.

 

Ryan Gosling's character is too much of a comic character.  He is shown to be a pathetic loser in almost every scene in the movie.  He is constantly drinking, frequently cursing, and endlessly smoking.  His moral compass points towards money.  Most of this happens in front of his 13 year-old daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice).  He suffers countless beatings and repeatedly falls from buildings.  Incompetence barely begins to describe him.  And then he is frequently clueless when it comes to really obvious incidents.  Funny, yes.  However, it makes it hard to like the guy.

 

Russell Crowe was the serious character.  Living as a thug for hire, he has notions of becoming a private investigator because those guys make a difference.  Thus he teams with March to get some pointers to the PI business.  Could he have chosen a worse mentor?

 

Funny and light but wait for Netflix.