BEFORE: Ryan Gosling carries over from "Drive" for the 2nd film of three in a row, but his third appearance (out of 5, probably) for the year. I'm getting close to that point where I can feel like the remaining schedule for 2017 is locked in, and I can officially go through every film and tally up each actor's appearances. Close, but I'm not quite there yet. Maybe in December, which is getting closer every day.
I recorded this film to go on a DVD with "Body of Lies" - the two films appear to have nothing in common except Russell Crowe, and the titles rhyme. Little things like that are helpful when I'm trying to remember what film I put on what disc, because they're arranged alphabetically on my shelf, but only by the name of the first film on each disc. All this time, and I still haven't found a better system for organizing my films so I can locate the 2nd film on a DVD - sometimes I just have to scan through 6 big DVD cases until I find the film I'm looking for, or something sparks my memory regarding which film I paired it with, and therefore which disc I put it on. "Drive" ended up on a DVD with "La La Land" just because both films premiered on PPV/premium cable around the same time.
THE PLOT: In 1970's Los Angeles, a mismatched pair of private eyes investigate a missing girl and the mysterious death of a porn star.
AFTER: Sometimes you can just tell that a movie was pitched to the studio as a combination of two or three other movies - this is sometimes called the "elevator pitch", as if you only had two minutes to describe an idea to a studio executive while riding on the elevator with him, so you have to resort to shorthand such as, "Imagine Groundhog Day meets Scream" and that's how you get the horror movie "Happy Death Day", which is in theaters now. For "The Nice Guys" it was probably "L.A. Confidential" meets "Boogie Nights" meets "The Big Lebowski".
You take the Los Angeles setting, corrupt politicians and Russell Crowe/Kim Basinger combo from "L.A. Confidential", the 1970's time period and the porn-industry backdrop of "Boogie Nights", and mix in the ransom delivery, drunk/stoned detective work and porn-industry backdrop (again?) from "The Big Lebowski" and that should account for everything in "The Nice Guys". It's a nice theory, but unfortunately it doesn't add up here to something greater than the sum of its parts. Like a few years ago I caught on to beer floats, which take two things that I love, beer and ice cream, and put them together. If it's done correctly, it makes for a tasty dessert/beverage - like putting vanilla ice cream in a pumpkin stout, or maybe some chocolate ice cream in a tasty coffee stout, or vice versa. Things like this make some culinary sense.
Last week I was at the Texas State Fair, home of many odd culinary creations (mostly deep-fried) but spotted a listing in the program for Oreo beer - say no more, I was sold, and I set out to find that booth with Oreo beer before the end of the day. But whoever invented this drink just threw any old pilsner beer into a slushie machine, creating a sort of frozen beer sludge, covered that with more liquid beer, rimmed the cup with Oreo crumbs and put a whole Oreo on top. It was disgusting, probably because someone didn't know there's more than one kind of beer (it MIGHT have worked with a nice Guinness, perhaps). "The Nice Guys" is kind of like the Oreo beer of movies.
Seriously, for the majority of this film I could not even tell what was taking place, or what was supposed to be taking place. I get that it's got something to do with a missing girl, but there's also a dead porn actress who apparently looks a lot like the missing girl (umm, even though they don't look a thing like each other) so the film has to bend over backwards to create a scenario in which every client of these detectives is old, senile and half-blind, or some combination thereof, just to create enough confusion to bring the two main characters together. That feels really, really forced and therefore unbelievable.
What's more confusing is that the missing girl, Amelia, ALSO made a porn film, but she did it as some kind of political protest against the auto industry, which for some reason doesn't want to implement the use of catalytic converters or something (sorry, I'm not a car guy, I didn't get this part at all). Another wild coincidence is that Amelia's mother has some high-level job with the Justice Department, but she's also being controlled by the auto industry, and I guess this is why there was so much smog in Los Angeles in the late 1970's? But believe me, nothing's smoggier or foggier than this film's premise.
There are underworld thugs all over the place, that keep showing up to try to kill Amelia, or one or both of our hero P.I.'s, but for thugs, they're very well-dressed. Again, it was the 1970's, and fashion was apparently everything. But by this time our two detectives have stopped fighting with each other (though on one level, they never really do...) and have decided to work together to unravel this case. They do this through a process of wild speculation, binge-drinking and attending parties at the home of porno producers. Because you know, detective work.
Everyone connected to this case keeps turning up dead, so I guess that's how they know they're on the right track? Also one of the detectives has a daughter, and she's somehow smarter than both of them put together. This is a serious problem, because the film relies on her tagging along everywhere they go, just so they have someone to figure things out, and who then needs to be rescued every 5 minutes.
The actress playing the daughter does the best job she can to not be annoying, but since the part was written for a 15-year old who acts like a 30-year old, and appears to have ironic knowledge of what will happen in the 1990's, it's no use, the character still ends up being very annoying.
But at least I could understand her - between Russell Crowe being apparently unable to move his lips and Ryan Gosling depending on his looks to speak for him, I could barely understand a word either of the lead actors was saying. How did someone make a mumble-core 1970's action comedy? And more importantly, why?
When you throw so many disparate elements into a movie's plot, you risk the end result being complete nonsense, and that's what I think happened here. The big climax of the film comes at the L.A. auto show, and the big plan was to secretly splice this porn film that satirizes the auto industry into the big company presentation - like, how would that even force anyone to take one step toward solving the smog problem? The worst that could happen would be that this car company would be embarrassed and force to apologize for screening a film with nudity, and then it would be back to business as usual. Even on its best day, this plot is complete nonsense.
There's a bit at the end that leaves open the possibility of a sequel, and I pray this never comes to pass.
Also starring Russell Crowe (last seen in "Body of Lies"), Matt Bomer (last seen in "Winter's Tale"), Angourie Rice (last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming"), Keith David (last seen in "The Thing"), Kim Basinger (last seen in "Grudge Match"), Lois Smith (last seen in "Run All Night"), Gil Gerard (last seen in "Airport '77"), Margaret Qualley, Beau Knapp (last seen in "Southpaw"), Yaya daCosta (last seen in "The Butler"), Murielle Telio, Daisy Tahan, Jack Kilmer, Gary Weeks (also last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming"), with cameos from Elayne Boosler, Robert Downey, Jr. (also last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming") and the voice of Hannibal Buress (last seen in "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising"),
RATING: 4 out of 10 killer bees
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