It's not Boogie Nights.

Rating: 6/10 (21 August 2017)

After the positive reviews I was expecting better.
A lot of work was done on the locations, wardrobe, and sets to make it look like 1970's Los Angeles, that's probably the highlight of the film, though Russel Crowe, Ryan Gosling, and Angourie Rice all do fine work here.
It's not a bad movie. Watching it I bounced between enjoyment and annoyance. Overall though, it ended up frustrating me.
I assumed this was going to be a detective procedural. That's how it starts out, and the first half of the film builds up a puzzle/mystery that drew me in and, normally, should have led somewhere. Then around the half way mark it drops that idea and in favor of ... well, stuff.
Maybe this one got hacked to bits in the editing suite, maybe it was just put together incompetently but the end result is a mess. It starts out as Get Carter, ends as Beverly Hills Cop, with bits of the A-Team and Boogie Nights spliced in for good measure. It's hard to stay on board for the ride.