Fool's gold

No proper discussion of the works of writer/director Shane Black can be complete without immediately asking oneself what makes the ‘buddy cop’ movie work well. After all, Black has practically and literally made it his life’s mission to study and perfect this one age-old story as many different ways as he can.

There are a few really important elements to the good ‘buddy cop’ movie, such as the exaggeration of the good cop/bad cop interplay, the sense of humour must hit just the right notes, and the plot itself must keep the audience’s interest. These things don’t always have to succeed individually, but what will always keep the overall movie successful is dependent on the writer, the production team (especially the director), and the chemistry between the two leads.

Black, as far as I’m concerned, is practically the king of this silly subgenre, not just because he understands it but also because he has put so much of his attention to it. He’s probably best known as for his masterwork, Lethal Weapon, which was also his first and most popular entry. You should also check out The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. That last title is especially important to our discussion today because it was such a spot-on buddy cop movie and Black sure seemed like, in this new entry, he was trying to recreate a lot of the magic between Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer but with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe standing on their forebear’s marks instead.

And boy did it ever not work out as well this time. The Nice Guys tells the story of private investigator and a hired thug collaborating on the case of a missing woman in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Gosling is the bumbling PI while Crowe is the burly heavy-handed type. Tagging along to keep them in line is Angourie Rice as Holly, Gosling’s teenage daughter, playing the part of an Inspector Gadget-type Penny ingĂ©nue. If it weren’t for her involvement, the case just wouldn’t be solved.

Sure, there’s all of the right elements at play but make no mistake, this is about as flat and stale a movie as you could find. It just goes to show you that you can have all of the gold in hand – the characters, the circumstances, the situation – but if you don’t know what to do with it then you might as well have lead.

Black is far too clever to crank out such excruciating celluloid. This proves that you can be book smart but if you’re not street smart then the result is abominable. This is a piece of cinematic fiction that looks like a gem but really just has emptiness at its core. Despite the wonderfully tongue in cheek performances by both Crowe and Gosling, there is nothing about The Nice Guys that feels right. Even the earnest and ardent attempts to recreate the ’70s wardrobe and scenery, it is far too obviously nowhere even close. The Nice Guys is a masquerade, and a shoddy one at that. This is fool’s gold.

What’s worse: this does not bode well for his highly anticipated Predator sequel, especially if there’s a bumbling Predator that is unlikely teamed up with the vicious, snarling Predator who both have to figure out how to get their spaceship back after it crashes in the middle of Los Angeles at Christmastime. If that’s the case, I’m already certain that I will feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before. Stick with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and kiss Black good night.