The Nice Guys

26 May 2016 | 2:56 pm | Guy Davis

"Black deftly balances his sappy and cynical sides."

As a screenwriter (Lethal Weapon) and a writer-director (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Shane Black may not possess the biggest or deepest bag of tricks in the business, but what lies within that bag invariably manages to surprise and entertain...well, if your tastes run to a little sex and a lot of violence, that is.

Black has his familiar turf and his favoured character types, by which I mean both the glitzy and grimy areas of Los Angeles and a pair of knights errant with histories of bad luck and bad choices. But these heroes, who carry themselves with a kind of shabby nobility, eventually overcome their inability to get their own way to set things right and restore their own honour.

All of this is evident in Black's new film The Nice Guys, which pairs Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as a soft-hearted thug-for-hire and a boozy private eye respectively. After an inauspicious first encounter (an on-the-job Crowe snaps Gosling's arm), the two join forces when their various clients are enmeshed in a conspiracy that involves porn, smog and the auto industry.

Plot-wise, it's kind of a shaggy dog, although Black does manage to tie the myriad strands together in the end. The real joy of The Nice Guys, however, lies in the way Black deftly balances his sappy and cynical sides and the cool, comfortable chemistry between Gosling (extremely likeable as a fuck-up) and the gruffly charming Crowe.

Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter