(Photo Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Outrageously Funny
1/2
Nothing says Los Angeles in 1977 like porn star mustaches, “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and exotic stage names like Misty Mountains.
And nothing says outrageously funny like “The Nice Guys” starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.
In “The Nice Guys,” the opening scene captures puberty at its essence before the age of the Internet.
A young man has to wait until his parents are asleep to discreetly steal his father’s “nudey” magazines to appreciate the upper anatomy of the lovely model Misty Mountains.
However, when a topless Misty Mountains somehow loses control of her car and crashes into the young boy’s house, narrowly missing him, something more than irony is at hand.
Holland March (Gosling) is hired to investigate Misty’s supposed death by her aunt.
Her aunt knows that a young lady by the name of Amelia (Margaret Qualley) knows something about what happened to Misty, so he starts his investigation there.
However, Amelia knows she is being investigated by March so she hires Jackson Healey (Crowe) to administer some street justice on her alleged “stalker.”
But when higher authority figures begin searching for Amelia too, March and Healey decide to team up to form the perfect crime-fighting duo known as the Nice Guys.
Their investigation leads them to a world of whores, hit men and crooked government officials.
It is almost too much for the Nice Guys to overcome.
Luckily, the smartest member of the team happens to be the unofficial third leg, March’s 13-year-old daughter Holly (Angourie Rice).
She is able to compensate for her father’s tomfoolery, which surprisingly does not lead to his death.
March falls in love with the enemy.
He mistakenly calls a eunuch a Munich as in Munich, Germany.
March turns off women who are paid to pretend to like men with his drunken pick up lines.
And he swims with lesbian mermaids instead of doing real investigative work.
“The Nice Guys” could have easily been a rip-off of comedy classics like “Rush Hour” or “Ride Along” but thanks to Gosling it shines with originality, something currently missing in Hollywood.
A bangin’ 1970s soundtrack featuring classics from The Temptations, Earth Wind and Fire and Kool and the Gang never hurts either.
However, those fake, wannabe Maurice White and Phillip Bailey were OK, but they cannot compete with the real deal when it comes to “September” or any classic by the elements.
“The Nice Guys” also answers the criticism Hollywood has received over the past year with two token Black appearances.
Sarcasm is below.
Keith David (“Barbershop 2” and “ATL”) stars as the requisite Black bad guy, Older Guy.
And it is good to see that all of the popularity Hannibal Burress has received for bringing down Bill Cosby has launched his career into the stratosphere.
Burress appears in “The Nice Guys” as a Giant Killer Bee.
Seriously, the brother is a bee in the movie.
Luckily, Yaya DaCosta saves the day with a role that has a little more meat on it.
She has no use for March’s meat though even though he keeps trying.
But lack of diversity and lack of luck with women for March aside, “The Nice Guys” should have been named “The Outrageously Funny Guys” because they may have just delivered 2016’s first comedy classic.
REGAL RATINGS
FOUR CROWNS=EXCELLENT
THREE CROWNS=GOOD
TWO CROWNS=AVERAGE
ONE CROWN=POOR
