Short Summary is an original series in which I write brief reviews of movies, TV shows, video games, books, and more. Spoiler alert, just in case!

The Nice Guys is simply fantastic. It’s one of the most well-written films I’ve seen in a while now. The dialogue is so sharp and witty that it’s practically gut-busting in every single scene. I seriously haven’t laughed that much during a film in quite some time.

Shane Black seems to know how to write buddy cop movies, with his work on the screenplays for the Lethal Weapon series and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. He even brought that buddy cop dynamic to Iron Man 3. However, The Nice Guys is a little bit different from those movies, in that the two cops aren’t exactly polar opposites and forced to work together. The two leads, Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) and Holland March (Ryan Gosling), are both private investigators, and they agree that working together on a case is the best course of action. They’re mismatched in personality just enough for their dynamic and humor to really work and play off one another.

This is probably the best performance I’ve seen from Ryan Gosling at all and certainly the best comedic performance from Russell Crowe I think we’ll ever get. Gosling plays March as a single dad who is obviously very caring for his daughter, Holly, and means well overall, but he’s a buffoon. His character is laugh-out-loud funny in how he’s sort of a wimp and fails miserably at his job. Meanwhile, Crowe plays Healy as the more aloof, stoic partner with a tough-guy demeanor. Out of the two, he’s the first to use violence as a means of getting information. He doesn’t play it safe, and he’s far from sensitive. Yet he gets a really good backstory and subtle character development, especially through Holly. Both March and Healy have hearts of gold when it comes to her, and I love their core relationship as a trio.

The story is set in Los Angeles during the 1970s, and everything about that setting plays well in The Nice Guys, from the plot to the soundtrack, the cinematography, and the borderline film noir narration from Healy and March. It starts with the death of a porn star, and the case gets more dangerous as the debaucheries increase. They eventually get hired by a high-ranking official within the DOJ who Healy describes as a “crusader,” an anti-porn advocate, and who fears that her daughter, Amelia, may be involved with the industry. Healy and March set out to find Amelia and bring her under their protection.

I’ve wanted to watch The Nice Guys for so long, and I couldn’t be happier that I finally got around to it! If you want to see action-comedy filmmaking done right, then you need to see this film.