Uneasy mix of comic non-sequiturs and violent noir proves tiresome

Rating: 4/10 (25 August 2017)

Set in 1977 Los Angeles, The Nice Guys stars a rather bloated and unkempt looking Russell Crowe as Jackson Healey, a tough enforcer who plays opposite Ryan Gosling as Holland March, an alcoholic private detective. March is hired by an old lady, Mrs. Glenn, who insists she saw her porn actress niece Misty, through the window of an apartment, despite the fact that Misty was killed in a car accident two days before. March gets on the trail of a mysterious young female, Amelia, who might be involved in Misty's disappearance. Healey is hired by Amelia to prevent March from finding her so he goes over to his house and beats him up.
After Healey and March's initial dust-up, Healey is attacked by two thugs who are looking for Amelia. After fending them off, Healey joins forces with March to look for the missing instigator. While The Nice Guys is designed as a gritty film noir, it also unhappily features the comic machinations of the two principals whose dialogue is loaded with a series of non-sequiturs. If this is your cup of tea, then you'lli probably like The Nice Guys but I found Crowe and Gosling's comic interplay to be repetitious and grating.
The rest of The Nice Guys plot is a bit convoluted to say the least. March, while in an alcoholic stupor, takes a pratfall over the railing in the back of a mansion where a party is going on, and ends up finding the corpse of Sid Shattuck, a porn producer who was involved with Amelia. Meanwhile, March's 12 year old daughter, Holly, is kidnapped by "Blue Face," one of the two thugs who attempted to kill Healey earlier. Holly prevents Blue Face from killing Amelia while inside the car and manages to escape and flee with Amelia. Surprisingly Blue Face is seriously injured by a hit and run driver. Before strangling him to death, Blue Face tells Healey that a notorious hit man, John Boy, has been hired to take out Amelia.
Also in the mix is Amelia's mother Judith (Kim Bassinger), a high- ranking Justice Department official who describes her daughter as unstable to both Healey and March. When the intrepid investigators bring Amelia back to March's house, they can't decide whether her tale of Detroit automaker collusion attempting to circumvent auto exhaust emission standards and her mother's involvement with them is true or whether Amelia is simply a spoiled brat with grand conspiracy theories. The ranting Amelia proves to be one of the more interesting characters in the film with a personality that appears to represent a satire on the over the top, leftist anti-government young people of today.
In addition to Crowe and Gosling's failed comedy routine, The Nice Guys takes an even further turn for the worse by confirming Amelia's story that her mother Judith indeed colluded with the Detroit automakers. Judith sends her assistant, Tally, to divert Healey and March by giving them a briefcase to deliver that is supposedly filled with $100,000 cash, but actually contains shredded magazines. Meanwhile, in the most unpleasant scene in the movie, John Boy ends up killing Amelia.
Healey and March finally figure out that the near-sighted Mrs. Glenn actually saw her niece in a movie that was being projected inside that apartment. It turns out that Amelia spliced in evidence of the Detroit automakers collusion into a film scheduled to be projected at the Los Angeles Auto Show. It's there that Healey and March engage in a wild shootout with the bad guys, one of whom dies and the other two apprehended.
The Nice Guys disappoints grandly with the stereotyped depiction of Judith, the scheming Justice Department official, who is willing to sacrifice her daughter for the good of the American economy. I don't buy it in the least and you shouldn't either.
With its uneasy mix of comedy and noir realism, The Nice Guys ends up trying to have it both ways. The killing of Amelia undercuts the comedy by introducing a tragic element too overbearing for a seemingly light-heartedly designed vehicle.