Have you ever had a feeling like your life was missing something, but you didn’t know what it was? We figured it out. The new red-band trailer for the Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling film The Nice Guys just dropped and it is three minutes of pure, unadulterated, insanity. It’s something that needs to be seen by everybody. As long as you’re an adult, of course, and not at work, also not anywhere near children. This trailer is the reason the red-band distinction was created, but it is so worth it.
Don’t you feel better now? Needless to say the title The Nice Guys is more than a little ironic. Who knew that the sound of Ryan Gosling squealing in pure agony was the greatest sound the world has ever heard? It’s beautiful in its agony, and the trailer only gets better from there. This movie has Russell Crowe beating the hell out people, naked mermaids, and someone who looks like Elvis getting hit by a speeding van. How can this not be the greatest movie ever made?
The story follows Russell Crowe as Jackson Healy. Early reports of the film’s plot pegged Crowe’s character as a rookie cop, but the trailer makes it clear he’s hired muscle. In this case, he’s hired to track down the daughter of a woman played by his L.A. Confidential castmate Kim Basinger. Healy in turn goes to private investigator Holland March, a gentleman he apparently met while delivering a "message" -- and by message, we mean a spiral fracture. The 1970’s-ness of it all makes the whole thing feel all the more surreal.
Co-written and directed by the masterful, and possibly somewhat insane, Shane Black, this movie does not look like anything we’ve seen in a long time. The degree of violence has been cranked up to a level that reaches comedy, without losing its impact. The trailer has us all laughing while we cringe. We don’t know if a body would actually explode like that after falling that far but, oh dear god, is that the most hilariously terrible (or is it terribly hilarious?) thing we’ve ever seen in our lives. The impact is not lost, even after seeing the trailer multiple times. Trust me, I know.
Shane Black wrote one of the greatest buddy-cop movies ever made, but Lethal Weapon this is not. Everything about The Nice Guys has been cranked up to 11. We can’t wait to see more from this one before it comes out next summer. Until then, we’ll just take up some of the time watching the trailer a few more times.
