No chemistry between the stars

Rating: 5/10 (28 May 2016)

I often find the best way to gauge a comedy is to see it in a packed theatre and observe how many jokes actually get genuine laughs out of the audience. I saw 'Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising' in a full theatre a couple of nights ago and nearly every single joke landed, and landed big, with many jokes causing loud and extended laughter. 'The Nice Guys' tonight however, was quite the opposite. The amount of pieces of intended humour that raised no sound at all were more plentiful than the ones that did. I laughed perhaps five times throughout the entire film and never once more than a quiet chuckle.
The main problem was a lack of chemistry between Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Gosling was trying so hard in every scene to make things funny, but it was simply coming across as desperate. It wasn't natural. Jim Carrey overacts, but he still has a way of making it seem natural and hilarious. Very few people in Hollywood today can pull this off and Gosling is evidently not one of them. Crowe plays the straight guy, but doesn't add a lot in the comedy department either. A pairing like Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum in '21 Jump Street' and its sequel, are what these guys needed to style themselves more around. Those two worked as a team and got hilarious results. Crowe and Gosling were just playing for themselves, and it comes across that way.
It's not all bad though. There are some good action sequences and the story moves at a fast enough pace to be interesting. In fact the story and action are a lot more enjoyable elements than the comedy side of things, which I never expected going in. At the end of the day though I think this set out to be a comedy and failed in doing so. There's a lot of positivity in the reviews of this film, but don't be fooled. It's not as fun of a ride as a lot of them are making out.