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The Nice Guys



A Shane Black film

Premiered at the Cannes Film Festival May 15,2016

Plot (Spoiler Alert)



In 1977 Los Angeles, a unethical enforcer, Jackson Healy, asks for help from a clumsy detective, Holland March, in finding a missing girl by the name of Amelia Kutner and investigate the death of a porn star.



Blaine: Shane Black and his co-writter, Anthony Bagarozzi, have known each other for years. They got together and wanted to write a 1970s detective story based on fictional books they loved to read. They were working on it around the same time Shane wrote “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". They were thinking about making it into a tv series at first so they can go into separate plots and mysteries they can solve, but then in 2009 they decided to make it into a film instead. That was better for Shane because what you have instead is these two guys who brought it to life in vivid and full formed way. They went back to research a lot of the stuff that happened in 1970s Los Angeles like there was the corruption element, the environmental element where it was all about panic over oil prices, pollution, automobiles and then people would protest things by pretending they’re dead. Hollywood Boulevard was sort of this cesspool of pornography. Twelve to thirteen year olds were able to drive a vintage car without a license as long as they could reach the pedal.

Shane Black is very good with writing stories about investigations and making them hilariously funny which is what I love the most about his work. After “Iron Man 3”, Shane was asked what he wants to do next and he really wanted to do “The Nice Guys”. Shane Black’s agency also represents Russell Crowe and they recommended that Russell be apart of the project and it was a bit of a surprise because Russell has taken on a lot of serious roles and has never done a comedy, but they said he’s a funny guy off camera and so Shane met with Russell in Australia to talk about the project. Russell Crowe read the script and he not only thought it was funny, but he knew it was a complete world built by characters that you could believe in and involved a absurd situation.

It was an entirely different role for Ryan Gosling because I usually see him as the handsome fella, but the character he plays in “The Nice Guys” is a detective who drinks a lot and is very clumsy. Not to mention he squeals. I love the characters, Jackson, Holland and Holly because each one has a different personality. You have the tough guy, the clumsy silly detective and his thirteen year old who is smart enough to be a part of the investigation.

Holly shows interest in investigations because her dad is a detective and she doesn’t mind people getting beat up, but she is not at all in favor of killing them. “The Nice Guys" is Angourie Rice’s first big American film. Angourie has been acting since she was a kid and comes from a creative family. Her mom is a play writer and her father is a director of theater and television. They lived in Perth, Australia for five years where there is a small entertainment industry, including theater. Angourie got herself an agent at a very young age, she would be in advertisements and landed a role in the 2013 apocalyptic drama, “These Final Hours". The project came to Angourie Rice through her agents and so she made an audition tape and sent it off and they liked it so they flew Angourie to LA where she did an audition for them in person.

A Shane Black film isn’t the same without having a bit Christmas in it. In the end it shows Jackson and Holland getting together in a diner and there is Christmas decorations up in the place.

My rating on “The Nice Guys” is five out of five stars.





Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice and Russell Crowe at the Cannes Film Festival 2016