Tagged: The Nice Guys
The Nice Guys: Russell Crowe’s Blue ’70s Leather Jacket
Russell Crowe as Jackson Healy in The Nice Guys (2016)
Vitals
Russell Crowe as Jackson Healy, unlicensed private detective
Los Angeles, Fall 1977
Film: The Nice Guys
Release Date: May 20, 2016
Director: Shane Black
Costume Designer: Kym Barrett
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
I was pleased to again join my friends Pete Brooker and Ken Stauffer on another episode of Pete’s podcast From Tailors With Love, this time discussing the fun ’70s style of Shane Black’s action comedy The Nice Guys.
For those unfamiliar, the “nice guys” in question are Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling, bringing back Black’s signature buddy comedy style in a big way as competing private eyes Jackson Healy and Holland March, respectively.
The older and worldlier yet paunchier Jack is more an enforcer than investigator, balancing his limb-breaking toughness with at least some remaining scruples, particularly when compared to the younger and less experienced Holly, who’s not above taking a case agreeing to help an aging woman track down her “missing” husband… whose ashes rest in an urn just a few feet away from them.
Like Crowe’s star-making turn almost twenty years earlier, The Nice Guys’ conspiratorial heartbeat is driven by Kim Basinger’s role at the intersection of corruption and porn in the City of Angels forty years prior, but the villains’ overcomplicated scheme are certainly secondary to the comedic chemistry between Crowe and Gosling, whom I—and Crowe himself—would love to see re-team for a follow-up… and with a built-in sequel title like The Nicer Guys, what’s stopping them? Continue reading
The Nice Guys: Ryan Gosling’s ’70s Sportswear
Ryan Gosling as Holland March in The Nice Guys (2016)
Vitals
Ryan Gosling as Holland March, unscrupulous private detective and single dad
Los Angeles, Fall 1977
Film: The Nice Guys
Release Date: May 20, 2016
Director: Shane Black
Costume Designer: Kym Barrett
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released five years ago this, week, The Nice Guys has been long overdue for some appreciation on here for its depiction of disco-era style and refreshing sense of humor.
The Nice Guys was directed and co-written by action cinema vet Shane Black, who explained to IndieWire that he wanted to make a playful tribute to the hardboiled detective thrillers he had grown up, choosing the ’70s to capitalize on the exuberance of the era and the “sense that we are all in it together… instead of all this divisiveness that we see now.” Anthony Bagarozzi, who co-wrote the script with Black, explained the irony of its title to Variety: “You know they’re two not-very-nice guys. One breaks arms for a living and the other cons old ladies out of money. It was literally the two worst people that we could think of and then trying to make that fun.”