“The Nice Guys” turns on the chemistry between Gosling’s manic detective and Crowe’s tough-but-humorous Healy. It nicely captures the seediness of L.A.in the ’70s, but, despite a very encouraging first act, it loses steam and gets bogged down in its own narrative.
Advertisement
Crowe and Gosling are having some career fun here. And, although he’s playing the relatively straight man, Crowe shows a hitherto untapped gift for comedy; or rather for bemusement at the expense of his consistently game co-star, whose tangle with a toilet cubicle is a highlight and whose stupidity saves their asses on more than one occasion. I never want another cigarette again!
This is exactly one minute into the interview.
Q: You’re from Canada but seem to be drawn to films set in Los Angeles, including “Gangster Squad”, “Drive” and “La La Land”.
Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is a thug-for-hire in 1977 Los Angeles.
Lo and behold the woman driving the vehicle appears to be none other than Ms. Mountain, who we eventually will learn, has ties to a young woman named Amelia (Margaret Qualley of HBO’s “The Leftovers”).
Catalytic converters, you ask? So unless this movie was future time-travel, they got that wrong, which is perplexing for a film so concerned with pop culture minutiae.
“What are we, communists?” exclaims Gosling. “Of course we like buddy movies“. “I got two schmucks”, shouts Silver.
“… with a giant smoking, talking bee and porn stars?” offers Gosling. “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes came out in 1978 and “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire was released in 1979. He worked in a little nod to the killer bees at that time.
Speaking at the film’s United Kingdom premiere, he said: “It’s basically a what not to do guide”. I thought he was very Shane Black (the writer/director).
As it is, Bomer adds two more high-profile portrayals to his list; a role in the ensemble western remake of The Magnificent Seven and his definition of legendary actor Montgomery Clift. He even channels Lou Costello’s verbal tics. It’s not a coincidence. Crowe has the more familiar part, as the brooding brute-albeit one who’s more gut than muscle at this point-looking to be part of something worthwhile and noble for once; if you twist the timelines a bit, you can nearly imagine the character as L.A. Confidential’s Bud White, 25 years later. This film is much more uneven in the laughs department. His writing is often amusing, wry and, at times, sophomoric. It’s a mistake to be surprised when great dramatic actors demonstrate such pristine comic chops – acting is acting, afterall – but there’s something freeing about watching a man largely known for the seriousness of films like “Blue Valentine” usher in what feels like a new chapter. Just do a film where you have to smoke. “I wouldn’t have been comfortable just doing a series of gags”.
For all of the other trappings of the scene – which, by the way, includes a set of assassins and a dead girl in a trunk – this is really the first act of a romantic comedy, writ large. “I have a Hawaiian shirt on, and he’s all wet because he was in the pool with mermaids”.
Gosling says it was so cold they were putting makeup on the extras so they wouldn’t look blue.
Advertisement
Later this year, Gosling will be seen in the musical comedy “La La Land” with Emma Stone. March is a mess, a hard-drinking ex-cop and widower, whose teen daughter Holly (Angourie Rice, a scene-stealer) is a sharper detective.
