It's been almost a decade since The Nice Guys first hit screens, teaming up the unlikely duo of Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as mismatched private investigators on a deadly case in 1970's LA. I'm not sure why, but the release of this new 4K UHD release was the first time that I'd heard of the film, it having managed to slip under my radar since it's release. Despite this, the trailer looked great, it had people OI enjoy watching in the lead roles, and it was from a director whose work I've liked, so I decided to give it a chance; and boy was I glad I did. And if you're like me, and have never seen The Nice Guys this release gives you the perfect excuse to do so.
The Nice Guys follows shady private investigator Holland March (Ryan Gosling), a recently widowed single father who takes crappy cases from retired clients that doesn't require much effort on his part. When he's hired by a woman who claims to have seen her dead niece, the porn actress Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio) alive days after her death it puts in on the trail of a young woman named Amelia (Margaret Qualley). At the same time, thug for hire Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), gets hired by Amelia to get 'some creep' off her tail; a job that leads to Healy beating up March.
Thinking that the job's done, Healy is surprised when armed criminals come after him wanting to know where Amelia is. Realising that there's more going on than there first appears, and knowing he doesn't have the skills to track Amelia down on his own, Healy hires March to help him get to the bottom of things. Now the two mismatched investigators are plunged into a world of pornography, corruption, and murder as they try to find Amelia before she becomes the latest victim in a mounting conspiracy.
The Nice Guys sets out its tone pretty early on, with an opening scene that draws you in but leaves you feeling baffled as a kid steals his fathers porno mag to ogle at photos of Misty Mountains, moments before her car ploughs through their house and she's left dying on the ground, naked, and posed the exact way she was in the magazine with cryptic dying words of 'how do you like my car, big boy?'. The film instantly mixes together bizarre comedy and dark mystery; something the film will manage to balance throughout its runtime as you find yourself trying to figure out answers one moment, and laughing out loud the next.
The casting of the lead actors goes a long way to making this tone work well. Crowe is the straight man of the two, with a role that's much more serious than Gosling; though that doesn't mean Crowe doesn't get to crack out some of the best comedy of the film. He brings a grittiness to the film that stems from his world weary air and sense of a man ground down to almost nothing. Gosling's March is similar in a lot of regards, he's a man recently widowed, trying to figure out a way to balance the need to raise his daughter with his desire to drown his sorrows. However, compared to Healy he comes across a lighter, more playful, largely thanks to his daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) and the dysfunctional by delightful relationship they have.
Angourie Rice is perhaps the most surprising member of the main cast, and in one of the best decisions of the filmmakers, the most competent detective of the three of them. Barely in her teens, March tries desperately to keep Holly away from the world in which he works, but thanks to her refusal to be shut out, she becomes embroiled in the case. Which is kind of a good thing as she manages to find leads, make connections, and even saves the day more than once. The injection of the kid sidekick into the buddy cop formula could have been a disastrous decision, but luckily Shane Black is a deft hand at it (he did give us Riggs and Murtaugh after all), that it instead becomes the missing piece to the dynamic that makes The Nice Guys a stand out of the genre.
The film's supporting cast all do a wonderful job at keeping the film feeling fresh an interesting, whether it's the terrifying villain John Boy (Matt Bomer), Amelia, her mother, the criminal after them (one of which is played by the always perfect Keith David), or the kid on his bike that's one of the best random sources of information I think I've seen in a film with a brilliantly delivered performance that makes his minute of screentime one I'll remember for years.
The Nice Guys is both a wonderful deconstruction of the detective buddy cop story and a love letter to it. The choice to set the film in the 1970's, a decision that came after a number of attempts to make the story work in the modern day, feels like the perfect choice, making the movie into a timeless piece of throwback fiction that can send up the era it's set in in such a way that the movie feels like it'll never become dated.
Shane Black has had a lot of hits in his career, but I've also found some of his newer work to have been a little disappointing. Having not enjoyed Iron Man 3 as much as most people did, and having loathed The Predator (the film had nightmare studio interference to be fair), I had begun to think that perhaps Black had lost his touch a little. However, The Nice Guys, which came out between the other two, reminds me why I love some of his other work, and why if given the right material certain directors can deliver magic.
The Second Sight release comes packed with extras that makes this edition stand out. Alongside brand new artwork the limited edition comes with some other extra physical pieces, including some gorgeous character art cards, and a book filled with essays on the film. On the disc there's the expected audio commentary, with Shane Black and co-writer Anthony Bagarozzi. Unlike most commentary tracks, however, this one includes moderator and The Nice Guys fan Priscilla Page. This is the first time that I'd heard a commentary structured this way, and it was a great choice. You get the usual effect of the crew reminiscing about the film and enjoying watching it again, but there's also someone there with a lot of knowledge and researched points to keep things flowing and to keep the conversation fresh. I honestly hope to see more like this in the future.
Alongside this, there's also new interviews with Shane Black, Producer Ethan Erwin, and Director of Photography Philippe Rousselot. There are also archival interviews with cast and crew, a new video essay on the film and Shane Black by Leigh Singer, a making of feature, and trailers. As susual, Second Sight seem to have gone out of their way to include as many older pieces as possible, but have also tried to give long time fans some new extra features to make this release worth taking a look at.
Having missed The Nice Guys when it was first released I am so glad that I was able to discover it now; though I am annoyed that I missed out on having this film in my life for a long time already. Perhaps it's been too long for a sequel to this, but if the film continues to find new fans and its audience grows maybe we'll get lucky enough that this can be the start of something that will be as fondly remembered as other iconic buddy cop movies. Even if that doesn't happen, The Nice Guys, remains a brilliant piece of movie history.
The Nice Guys 4K UHD Limited Edition and Blu-ray Standard Edition is released on 16th June 2025 courtesy of Second Sight
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