The Nice Guys (2016)

Set against the sun-baked sprawl of 1970s Los Angeles, The Nice Guys (2016) pairs a down-on-his-luck private investigator with a hired enforcer as they stumble into a missing persons case that turns out to be rather more than either of them bargained for. The period setting is more than window dressing: the film leans into the particular seediness of late-seventies LA, a city swimming in smog, corruption, and the slow decay of an industry just beginning to show its cracks. It is the kind of setting that crime fiction has always found irresistible, and writer-director Shane Black uses it with obvious relish.

Black is a writer with a long and well-documented love of the buddy comedy format, and The Nice Guys represents something of a passion project in that tradition. He had previously worked with big studio machinery on Iron Man 3, and would go on to take on another franchise entry with The Predator, but this one feels closer to his instincts as a storyteller: smaller in scale, more character-driven, and rooted in a specific time and place. Produced by Silver Pictures and Waypoint Entertainment, the film runs at a brisk 116 minutes and carries the tagline "They're not that nice," which tells you most of what you need to know about its tone.

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling lead the picture as the mismatched pair at its centre, and the two bring quite different energies to their roles. Crowe, a performer with a career stretching from the neo-noir crime world of 1950s LA to ancient Rome, brings a physical solidity to his enforcer that grounds the more farcical elements of the story. Gosling, playing the private eye with a gift for misfortune, handles the physical comedy with a looseness that suits the material. Angourie Rice appears as the sharp-minded daughter who ends up rather more involved in proceedings than anyone intended, and Matt Bomer and Margaret Qualley round out a cast that is polished but unremarkable in the supporting positions.

Good but not great. Soundtrack was good. Nice to see the classic 70s cars. Russell Crowe was great in this. Reminded me alot of his role in LA Confidential. Occasionally funny. Often entertaining. Story is your typical neo-noir mystery film but it is quite convoluted.

That comparison to L.A. Confidential is one that kept nagging at me throughout, and it is not entirely flattering to this film. Crowe is on fine form here, no question, but there is a sense that the story never quite earns the complexity it is reaching for. When a mystery starts to feel convoluted rather than layered, it tends to pull you out of the fun rather than deepen it, and that is the trap The Nice Guys falls into more than once. Still, the cars look great, the soundtrack does its job, and there are enough laughs scattered through the runtime to make it a decent enough watch. Just not one I would rush back to.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2016  | Watched: 2025-06-13

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for The Nice Guys (2016) on YouTube

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Shane Black: Iron Man 3 (2013) · The Predator (2018)
More with Russell Crowe: A Beautiful Mind (2001) · Gladiator (2000) · Virtuosity (1995) · L.A. Confidential (1997)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)