“Nice Guys Finish Last.” That’s a saying we’ve all heard before. The grunge band Green Day wrote an iconic song about it in the mid-1990s. I’ll alter the quote slightly by saying that The Nice Guys finishes last. This was not my favorite movie. I knew I would probably feel this way going into the film, but I was willing to sacrifice the two hours because it starred two of my favorite actors, Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine, Drive) and Russell Crowe (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind). Despite its 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I had no faith in this movie. Its style wasn’t my favorite. Shane Black (Iron Man 3, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) style for directing this movie was similar to that of Joel and Ethan Coen in that it blended comedy, drama, action, dark comedy, crime (both organized and unorganized), and even small bits of horror to try to come up with a unique idea. Was The Nice Guys a unique idea? No, not really.

I am not a gigantic fan of the Coen brothers. While most of their films I do not like, the ones that I do are ones I like a lot. These include No Country For Old Men (obviously), Inside Llewyn Davis, True Grit, A Serious Man, and my favorite, Fargo. Movies like Fargo undoubtedly inspired the Nice Guys. Just like with Fargo, you have these rich, memorable characters. You have a “who done it” or “where are they” mystery in which the caricature-like criminals make as many blunders as the sloppy good guys trying to go after them. It worked for Fargo because that movie seemed far ahead of its time. It doesn’t work here for me because, despite its claims, it isn’t original. It’s a movie style we’ve seen hundreds of times since, and I feel increasingly disinterested each time.

What does work is the chemistry between Gosling and Crowe. While Gosling brings his A-game to each movie, Crowe has mailed it home in recent films (like what I’m doing now with this review) like Broken City, the horrendous Noah, and Winter’s Tale. He did not do that here, meeting Gosling wit for wit, scene for scene. That said, I like to see Gosling and Crowe in much heavier dramas than in black comedies such as The Nice Guys. Sure, Gosling can do comedy. He was outstanding in Crazy, Stupid, Love. But he’s better suited for thicker movies that leave you drained at the end. The same can be said for Crowe, who I have yet to see succeed in comedy. Yes, he was great in this film, but no, I would not be interested in seeing him in this type of film again.

Crowe (Jackson Healy) and Gosling (Holland March) are private detectives who have to take less-than-stellar jobs for less-than-stellar pay. The fact of the matter is neither is very good. They stumble upon the same case while trying to find a missing girl named Amelia (Margaret Qualley – Palo Alto, television’s The Leftovers). Amelia’s mother hired Holland to see her, while Amelia hired Jackson to keep Holland off her back. However, when she slips away, the unlikely pair team up to get the reward for her return while trying to one-up one another.

I like a good buddy movie that can make me laugh, but this one isn’t it. I want my comedies to be funny, and while there are those out there who will love this movie and think it is hilarious, I am not one of those people. It tries to be too cute and too clever, and, as a result, I honestly felt like I was suffering. The movie had promise at the beginning. I enjoyed trying to see how these two characters would work out their differences and solve a case that, in the beginning, didn’t seem too difficult to follow. But then you have this script with all of these twists and turns, and the comedy routine trying to be performed by Gosling and Crowe became a significant distraction. I was ready to give the movie a C grade about halfway through, but it kept getting worse and worse. And the 1-hour and 56-minute runtime felt like it was about four hours. It was one of those movies that, when you felt like it was ready to end, kept continuing on and on and on. In this regard, it was like Prisoners, but much worse because I could at least take Prisoners seriously (at least to a certain extent).

When the movie ended mercifully, I felt like I couldn’t give it anything other than an F. I knew I wasn’t going to like this movie, but I gave it as serious of a chance as I could anyway. I was not rewarded for it. Gosling was good, and he’s allowed to star in movies I don’t love, but I don’t know if Crowe can survive. His status in my 10-favorite-actor category was already slipping, and some very deserving candidates were able and willing to fulfill that role. I will have to think about its place on this list strongly.

Plot 6/10
Character Development 6/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 8/10
Screenplay 5/10
Directing 6/10
Cinematography 6/10
Sound 6/10
Hook and Reel 5/10
Universal Relevance 5/10
61%

D

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