Thursday, September 22, 2016

THE NICE GUYS Review!!!

We're taking a detour from comic book related stuff today for a couple of reasons.

1. My pre-ordered Captain America: Civil War, which I was planning on watching and reviewing in detail, STILL hasn't arrived despite Amazon telling me it was arriving on Tuesday.

2. I rented the Nice Guys instead and was blown away.



The Nice Guys might be the best movie of the summer! Seriously! Written and directed by Shane Black, the man who has brought us classic action comedies like Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Shane is actually one of my favorite screenwriters. He's written all of the Lethal Weapon movies, Iron Man 3, THE MONSTER SQUAD, and the Last Boy Scout! This dude knows action, but even more importantly, he knows comedy!

The Nice Guys wouldn't work if it were cast like a comedy. Meaning, if a known comedic duo like Will Ferrell and John C. Riley, or Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill were the stars of this movie it would not have been as funny. Ryan Gosling and Russel Crowe KILL IT in this movie.



Gosling especially nails his roll, his facial cues say what he's thinking almost better than his mouth does.


Both actors play these characters straight, so the humor is perfectly balanced. Add in an interesting private detective story with a constantly unraveling mystery and you've got yourself a great summer movie!



This is also one of those movies that is better the less you know about it. I've found this with a few other movies this year: 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Revanent immediately come to mind. A brief synopsis is all you need before watching, so here's mine:

In the 1970's, Ryan Gosling is a Private Detective who teams up with professional tough guy Russel Crowe to investigate the apparent murder of a porn star.

I'm still watching the movie as I write this and it is constantly making me laugh out loud! I thought Gosling was great in The Big Short, but I think he's even better in this! I've also always enjoyed Russell Crowe, except when he sings, and he fits the tough guy role perfectly.

I'm also a sucker for a good detective story, and this is one of those that just keeps unraveling and unraveling, revealing more and more as the movie goes. Just when you think you've got things figured out, a new plot twist is revealed. And it all works!

Remember LA Confidential? I LOVE that movie. The Nice Guys has a similar feel to it, but it's only because of the setting; LA in the 70's, and because Russell Crowe is in it. He's much older and put on a lot of weight for this role, but he's still a bad ass!

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JUST finished watching. Straight talk. This movie is terrific. It is perfectly written, perfectly directed, and perfectly performed. Now, my favorite movies are the ones that are usually released between the months of March to August. They're the summer blockbusters, and big comedy movies. The Nice Guys is definitely more of a comedy than a blockbuster, but for the overall experience it's simply a terrific movie! I highly recommend watching this, as well as checking out other Shane Black films. Be sure to keep an eye out for his next project...a new PREDATOR movie!!!!! (He actually played Hawkins, the first guy to be killed by the Predator, in the original movie. Also, he was writing the script for the Lethal Weapon at the same time as filming for Predator). A+!


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