Endlessly charming and free-flowingly hilarious

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2016)

The Nice Guys begins with the killer bass-line of "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" and some 1970s attention grabbing neon font, and just like that I arrived in 1977 in my time machine. The film hearkens back to the heyday of bubby movies of the 80s, the celebrated world of porn stars and the crime noir of the 70s. All these is given neo-twist of a fresh lemon slice and wala... out comes a new concoction that I gleefully drank non-stop for 2 hours.
The story is not really as important as the ride. It is merely about an enforcer (Russell Crowe) and the world's lousiest private investigator (Ryan Gosling) joining forces to look for a girl named Amelia. Along the way they will encounter goons, a hired killer, Pocahontas, a human fly and strippers dressed as mermaids in a world of government conspiracy. I only managed to glean the story much later on and was befuddled for the first two-thirds of the movie, but that never took away any joy, not one single bit. I found myself laughing out loud at the hilarious antics of these intensely lovable pricks. Writer-director Shane Black gets the "anything goes" tone and the 70s vibe just right and deftly balances the gravity of the story and the hilarity of the situations. How I know? I found myself laughing at sequences of gratuitous bloodletting as boorish people die on screen. That is not an easy feat to achieve.
Even though the film is far from perfect, the snappy dialogue crackles with such vibrancy that it smooths out the uneven passages. Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling makes a superb pairing for an odd couple and both of them dial down their gravitas to serve the story. They also have the help of Gosling's daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice) to neatly get them out of plenty of troublesome situations. What a threesome they make!
Endlessly charming and free-flowingly hilarious, you would want to hire these not so nice guys for a missing person case and watch the ensuing havoc with a beer in your hand.