Put Shane Black in charge of Hollywood
Formula works if you love the formula. “The Nice Guys” may be a formulaic buddy action-comedy, but it’s made by a guy who understands the genre better than anyone else.
The entirety of Shane Black’s impressive career can be traced back to his screenplay for the original “Lethal Weapon.” Forget about how much you hate Mel Gibson nowadays, “Lethal Weapon” is the start of a buddy-cop golden era that includes Black-penned entries like “The Last Boy Scout” and “The Long Kiss Goodnight.” (Yes, snobs, those movies are good).
Black also co-wrote “The Monster Squad,” which is a “Goonies”-like kiddie adventure that’s better than “The Goonies.” Why do people forget this movie is awesome?
Black disappeared for a while but returned strong with his 2005 directorial debut, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” He used the momentum there to snag “Iron Man 3,” a Marvel blockbuster that works best when it sticks to the Black essentials — buddy banter, precocious kids and a general tone of cynicism.
“The Nice Guys,” a 70s-set detective story, contains all the usual “Shane Blackisms” within the familiar buddy cop tropes. It’s fast, funny and hangs together almost entirely on the chemistry between its stars. If that sounds like faint praise, remember how often Hollywood misses the mark in the genre (“Ride Along” and its sequel may be popular, but they are obnoxious wannabes to the Shane Black formula).
Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are so good together in “The Nice Guys” you wish they were less famous just so they would sign up for a TV version. There just isn’t enough of them playing off each other.
Crowe, embracing a less-chiseled form, plays a do-gooder with a violent streak. He beats on thugs and lowlifes for money, but he (usually) does it to protect those who can’t fight themselves.
Gosling plays a low-rent PI investigating the disappearance of an adult film star. He’s a capable investigator, so long as the work doesn’t interfere with his hard drinking. He has a precocious daughter (Shane Blackism!) who is often forced to solve cases for him. Eventually, the missing girl case leads Gosling’s face straight into Crowe’s fists.
They team up and complain about each other. The case gets complicated by assassins, corrupt prosecutors and far-reaching corporate conspiracy. “The Nice Guys” checks all the boxes, even as Black throws a few twists and meta commentary in the mix. The ’70s setting only fuels the absurdity, presented best in Crowe and Gosling’s wardrobe.
Where many screenwriters and Hollywood execs use formula as a crutch, Black uses them as a launch pad, turning tropes into opportunities for character-driven humor and story momentum. The formula exists because the formula, at one point, worked so well to drive a story. Black actually knows how to drive the story.
“The Nice Guys” won’t make a fraction of the box office for “Ride Along,” and some will see the somewhat-indifferent audience response to “Nice Guys” as evidence of the genre’s decline. Black’s movies won’t win Oscars, and they probably shouldn’t. But pushing his formula out of Hollywood is another unsteady step toward the “franchising” of all movies.
It’s important to distinguish formula from franchise, because while both may lean too hard on over-familiarity, formula is better suited for self-contained storytelling. “Lethal Weapon” may have led to “Lethal Weapon 2,” but “Lethal Weapon” is still its own story.
Say what you will about Black’s “Iron Man 3,” it isn’t just setup for future Iron Man movies. The movie follows a formula, but in a way that’s self-contained and allowed to be entertaining in its own right. Compare the “formula” of “Iron Man 3” with the “franchising” in “Iron Man 2” (not a Shane Black feature), and it’s clear which movie works better as its own entity.
This is all to say “The Nice Guys” is a version of the buddy-cop genre most deserving of preservation. Let Shane Black handle them all, even the next “Ride Along” installment.
And please let Gosling and Crowe’s next few movies bomb hard at the box office. Then call Netflix for a multi-season commitment.
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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.