The nice guys: Nice but differently

Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Kim Basinger

Rated: 6/10

It’s the 70s, flary booms, long locks, a lot of cigarette (with ‘smoking kills’ warnings imported from 2016), alcohol haze, Nixonian issues and happenings that Americans may know more about than Indians.

What we know better, however, are Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling and what they can do to a film. Here, they indulge in a loosely constructed bromance pivoted around a murder mystery with a tag to those 70s issues that rocked America — like environment protests and the underhand push to the auto lobby, not to mention a corrupt justice department baying, in this case, for its very own daughter’s blood.

It all starts with a car crashing into the home of a young boy in the dead of the night with porn star Misty M driving it — yes you guessed right — stark naked. Of course she dies instantly and seems to have no connection with the film, till young girl Amelia hires contract bouncer Crowe to beat up detective March (Ryan) who is on her trail.

The film has a sense of humour as stark as the punches that Crowe pulls on many faces without a care in the world, or conscience for that matter. In a way, it is an interesting story to tell though it is not really a global kind of film. The digs taken at Nixon and his administration may make sense only to those who know about it.

But other than that, it is a hatke film in which two far-removed guys get together, along with a 15-year-old daughter, to solve the case of Amelia which has left three people dead, goons on trail and a band of funny protestors trying to be dead in the middle of life.

What struck me most? The girth and the grizzle of Russell Crowe. He is just too fat and looks veritably unhealthy. Ryan Gosling? Too much in an alcoholic haze to make sense but  still makes impact. 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 5 June 2016