Back in the 1970s, when I started developing my, ahem, awareness of film History, retro noir films were in fashion. Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), George Roy Hill's lower browed but equally entertaining The Sting (1973), John Milius' indie Dillinger (1973) were early filmic manifestations of what turned out to be an enduring popular culture phenomenon. Some 30/40 years, retro noir appears to have set up residence in the 70s, if Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014) and The Nice Guys are anything to go by. Which leads me to muse 30 years down the road I might be posting reviews of retro noir capers set in the good old two thousand teens, back in the days when trump ran for President, the brits voted to try and jump bone and sinew out of their skin, the turkish Government set its own country back 100 years while the population cheered and most of the so-called developed world electorate sat at home watching soap and sports on TV while their Parliaments systematically underfunded education, health and security to bail out irresponsible financial speculators.
But I digress. The Nice Guys is the 3rd feature film directed by Shane Black, who has under his belt a 30 year career screenwriting neo-noirs and thrillers for the likes of Richard Donner, Renny Harlin, John Mctiernan and tony Scott.
Now it is clearer from where came a considerable amount of the merit of some those films. The Nice Guys tells the story of small time private eye Holland March (Ryan Gosling) and all-purpose tough guy Jackson Healey (Russell Crowe) more or less accidentally teaming up to solve the murder mystery of porn star Misty Mountains (Muriell Telio) in disco days LA, encountering the same difficulties with Crime, the Establishment and the Law Humphrey Bogart would have had 30 years previous but with lots more gags and jokes.
Shane Black's directing style is comparatively sedated and unobtrusive, but his writing more than compensates. He may be the closest thing to a contemporary Ben Hecht. The plot pirouettes are masterfully calibrated and punctuated with occasional off-the-wall allowances for sexual explicitness and anticlimactic drama rare in mainstream commercial American cinema, along with what to me felt like a slight whiff of Peter Bogdanovich.
The Nice Guys could go down in History as the film with the least imaginative title relative to entertainment value. Do not let that deter you. It is one of the funnest movies of the season