The Nice Guys (2016)

I was not planning to see this so soon after other action crime comedies. But once again, Netflix said it would stop streaming at the end of the month. (Also, my smart TV will stop including Netflix on April 17, presumably for planned obsolescence, but my Fire Stick should take care of that.)

In '77 L.A., a suspicious death leads politically active porn actress Amelia Kuttner (Margaret Qualley) to suspect that someone will try to kill her next. She hires thuggish Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) to protect her, and he attacks drunken, semi-competent PI Holland March (Ryan Gosling) for following her to try to resolve the first death's mystery. Nevertheless, Healy talks March into a team-up when they realize there are bigger threats to counter. Who's targeting all these folks in the porn industry, and why?

The opening scene told me not only of a hard R but of improbability bordering on surrealism. I needed a minute to accept that the sequence was not somebody's dream or whatnot. Oddly enough, the movie sometimes gets more realistic than usual for the genre, as when breaking a window does a number on March's fist -- a plus in my book. But events rely at least as much on dumb luck as on his dubious detective skills. (Healy is at least an adept fighter.)

We get the most innocent bystanders hurt or killed I've seen on screen since the '90s. It's treated more flippantly than in Pulp Fiction but less humorously than in the Naked Gun series. I'm not sure what mood the filmmakers were going for with that. A shout-out to neo-noir predecessors?

I also question the wisdom of giving March a cherub-faced 13-year-old daughter (Angourie Rice) who insists on inserting herself into dangerous scenarios, apparently because she doesn't trust her dad to survive without her. I always have hang-ups about prominent parts for children younger than the target audience, especially in scenes befitting the rating.

In one sense, TNG is almost ahead of its time: Amelia's accusations against the federal government and corporations, however over-the-top in her presentation, appear entirely justified. That doesn't mean I respect the morality of the whole picture. Putting the gratuitous grit aside, the antiheroes don't grow much.

If there's one element I enjoy without reservation, it's the soundtrack. Whatever the genre, these '70s hits are worth replaying. Of course, all signs of the decade are in audiovisual trappings; the story could take place almost any time in the past century.

The ending teases a sequel, but maybe it's just as well TNG didn't make enough at the box office for that. I for one have had my fill.