Movie Review: Nice Guys

Advanced showing, 116 minutes

Director: Shane Black, Crime comedy drama

Accurate trailer? Yup.

Really enjoyable basic buddy-cop movie set in dirty sleazy 70s LA.  Borrows from 70s cops shows, and movies such as Boogie Nights, LA Confidential and Guy Richie's later works.

Entertaining script well delivered with great chemistry between the recently out of sorts Crowe and the in-form Gosling, backed up by a good ensemble cast.

The only disappointing performance came from Kim Basinger, whose performance I strongly suspect has been heavily edited out.

The action is snappy, the dialogue clever but not pretentious and harks back to Black's previous work on Lethal Weapon and even As Good as it Gets.

The lack of obvious special effects shows a great restraint on the part of the director--it would have been tempting to have huge explosions and Matrix style slow motion. The only time physics was defied was in the revelation that bullets do not pass through car trunks and wooden doors--forgivable.

I thoroughly enjoyed it in story and film making terms.

A classic? Not quite, the ending is oddly unfulfilling and the climactic action scene is a bit convoluted, so a 9/10 from me.