A comedy with brains

Rating: 9/10 (27 August 2016)

Shane Black (the Lethal Weapon series, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Last Action Hero) wrote (with Anthony Bagarozzi) and directed this combination thunder and hilarious spoof of a tow guy crime film and wisely chose Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling to be the pair du jour to pull of this zany and entertaining film.
A mismatched pair of private eyes investigate the apparent suicide of a porn star in 1970s Los Angeles. Jackson Healey (Russell Crowe) is a fixer who fixes things with his fists. Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a cop who following his wife's death became a drunk, a sometimes-present father to his very bright daughter Holly (Angourie Rice). He would become a P.I. who takes on weird cases. He is currently working for a woman (Lois Smith) who wants him to prove that her niece a porn actress (Murielle Telio) is alive when everyone knows she died recently. His investigation takes him to a girl named Amelia Margaret Quailey) who avoids him. She then hires Healey to tell him to leave her alone which he does. But later some guys go to Healey and want to know where Amelia is. When he handles them, he asks March to help him find Amelia. They learn that Amelia's boyfriend, a filmmaker, was killed and his house was burned down along with the film. They later learn the Porn star's producer is also dead. So what is going on.a complex plot to show the world a film about corruption and greed.
It is always surprising when directors and costumers go to such extremes to recreate a period (the 1970s Los Angeles) and yet allow such oversights as the au courante five o'clock facial hair that would never have been around so ubiquitously during that time. Now that the porn industry is everyday news that portion holds no secrets, but in the 1970s? But those are small issues in a film that keeps us entertained from the first scene through an hilarious men's restroom scene (Ryan Gosling is extraordinarily funny) to the last expected explosion/bang-bang close. Kick back and just prepare for some belly laughs. Adult themes throughout.