The Nice Guys Review

The Nice Guys is a movie that takes place in Los Angeles in the 1970s and the main characters are anything but nice, at least most of the time.

The Nice Guys is about a private investigator named Holland March, played by Ryan Gosling, who is searching for a girl named Amelia.  Amelia has hired Jackson Healy, played by Russell Crowe, to find March and get him off her tail.  Healy ends up running into two other guys that are also looking for Amelia, but they offend Healy, so he decides to join March in the search for Amelia.  Along the way March and Healy learn that their case is more than just for a missing person.

Where The Nice Guys succeeds the most is in the chemistry between Gosling and Crowe.  Seeing them on the big screen together is an absolute blast.  Crowe plays a big, brute enforcer and Gosling plays a bumbling investigator that would rather screw people out of money than actually solve their case.  That combination works so well in this movie.  Sometimes they must get out of situations using Crowe's physicality and other times they must use Gosling's detective work even when it comes to being just blind luck.  Of the two, though, Gosling shines the brightest.  His character adds this energy to the movie that puts a smile to your face and makes you want the movie to never end.

Other than Gosling, the other star of The Nice Guys is Angourie Rice, who plays March's daughter, Holly.  Normally kids in movies like this can be annoying but in The Nice Guys, Holly is actually useful.  She adds this spunk to the movie that helps bond her father and Healy.  Holly is interested in what her dad does for a job and tries multiple times to become an investigator and prove to her dad that she is just as good as he is.  Sometimes she succeeds, other times she gets into situations that are way over her head.

The story in The Nice Guys is something that needed to be tightened up.  The case that Healy and March are on ends up being way more convoluted than it needed to be.  I wish it would have just stayed as a missing person case, but instead it turned into this tale of corporate corruption and it didn't really take that turn until 3/4 into the movie.  Because it came so late into the movie, the ending felt really rushed and crammed.  There was also some backstory for March that is hinted at, but never fully fleshed out.

The Nice Guys is a fun, original movie.  The chemistry between the leads, Crowe and Gosling, is why you must see this movie, they are an absolute joy to watch.