7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.2 |
A private eye and an enforcer-for-hire investigate the death of a porn star in 1970s Los Angeles and uncover a conspiracy.
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret QualleyDark humor | 100% |
Period | 54% |
Mystery | 12% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English DD 5.1=audio descriptive
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
There's not much "nice" about either of the two sad sacks who find themselves thrown together in The Nice Guys. Writer/director Shane Black specializes in mismatched pairings whose feuds are at least as entertaining as whatever mystery they're trying to solve. As a writer, he gave us the suicidal Riggs and the retirement-conflicted Murtagh, whose partnership proved so popular that the Lethal Weapon franchise survived even Black's own attempt to end it after the second film. He followed up by teaming Bruce Willis' dysfunctional private eye with Damon Wayons' disgraced football star in The Last Boy Scout, and Geena Davis' soccer mom-cum-sleeper agent with Samuel L. Jackson's feckless shamus in The Long Kiss Goodnight. In Black's 2005 directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, he combined Val Kilmer and Robert Downey, Jr., in a deft parody of his own buddy formula (not to mention the cliches of the modern action film that he helped to create), but the film sputtered at the box office, garnering a belated fan base on home video. The Nice Guys also disappointed in theaters, but I suspect it too will enjoy a healthy afterlife, as a larger audience tunes into its goofy vibe.
The Nice Guys was shot digitally (on both Alexa and Red, according to IMDb) by the great French cinematographer Philippe Rousselot (an Oscar winner for A River Runs Through It), whose lighting alternates between the rich palette and deep blacks of neo-noir and the neon glow of Seventies celebration; the latter is most vividly observed in the extended party/orgy sequence when Healy and March visit a porn producer's palatial hilltop home. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray sports a consistently sharp and detailed image that brings out every crag in the face of Russell Crowe's Healy and every wrinkle in Ryan Gosling's perpetually disheveled March. Densities and contrast are consistently excellent, and no aliasing, banding or other anomalies were observed. Warner has mastered The Nice Guys at an average bitrate of 27.65 Mbps, which is higher than usual for the theatrical division and hopefully represents a trend.
The Nice Guys's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, provides the expected punch and power of a contemporary action film that includes gunplay, car chases and hand-to-hand combat. The surrounds come alive whenever the action ramps up, providing subtle environmental cues in quieter scenes. The dialogue is always clear and well-positioned, which is especially important with a script that often takes verbal detours for a comic grace note (when was the last time you heard an exchange that turned on the rhyming pronunciation of "Munich" and "eunuch"?). David Buckley and John Ottman, the same team that scored the current Jason Bourne, supplied the period-flavored action score, but the highlights of the soundtrack are the many period-specific hits, which range from The Bee Gees' "Jive Talkin'" to America's "Horse with No Name" to Rupert Holmes's "The Piña Colada Song", which wasn't released until two years after the film is set, one of the film's many small anachronisms—but who cares? If you were around for the Seventies, the soundtrack is a trip down memory lane. If you weren't, it's a sonic time capsule.
The extras are disappointingly slim, consisting of two brief EPK-like featurettes.
If The Nice Guys had been more successful, Warner might have sprung for more than token
extras. It would have been interesting, for example, to explore production designer Richard
Bridgland's transformation of downtown Atlanta into Seventies L.A., or Kym Barrett's costume
designs, or the musicians who reincarnate Earth, Wind & Fire performing at a lavish party. But
the film's the thing, and Warner's Blu-ray presents it well. Highly recommended.
2019
2011
2015
1972
Collector's Edition
1985
2005
Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Series
1955
2015
1942
2018
2012
2017
2022
2007
1995
Unrated Director's Cut
2011
1971
Limited Edition to 3000
1993
Réalité
2014
2013