i can't believe this is a movie by shane black...

Rating: 3/10 (23 August 2016)

...i mean after all, he's the guy who wrote and directed "kiss kiss bang bang"! he also wrote "lethal weapon 1 + 2" and "the last boy scout"...so by default one might think "here's a guy who knows his way around a buddy-action-comedy", right? so how did this happen? 90% of the time the humor/writing is flat and feels forced. the story feels aimless but is pretty transparent at the same time. what little chemistry there is between the main protagonists feels weak and trivial. the characters in general are boring and one dimensional.
ryan gosling's character is "dumb".
angourie rice's character is "bratty".
kim basinger is "evil".
margaret qualley is..."sleepy"? the only character i liked was russell crowe's. i mean there's not much happening with his character...no real arch or anything. he's just a mean but kind of likable badass. and the character is "working" mostly because crowe is the right guy for the part.
one of the biggest flaws of this movie is that ryan gosling is simply miscast in this role. he's just not a funny actor. i have rarely seen more cringe inducing, awkward "comedy performances" in a single movie.
it's really too bad...i can think of many actors that would have been a better match to play gosling's character and could maybe even do "something" with those bad lines and silly performances.
the ending of the movie is totally pointless and random. it's just there as a last reminder that you just wasted 2 hours of your life with a movie that you have basically seen many times before. except this time people just couldn't be bothered to put any effort in.
do yourself a favor and re-watch "kiss kiss bang bang" instead.