The Nice Guys is a 2016 American neo-noir buddy action comedy film directed by Shane Black, who co-wrote the screenplay with Anthony Bagarozzi.

Set in 1977 Los Angeles, the film focuses on private eye Holland March (Gosling) and tough enforcer for hire Jackson Healy (Crowe) who team up to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl (Qualley).

The Nice Guys premiered on May 11, 2016, in Hollywood, screened on May 15 at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and was released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States on May 20, 2016.

[7][8][9][10][11][12] In 1977 Los Angeles, Holland March is a private eye hired by Mrs. Glenn to find her niece, porn star Misty Mountains, who she claims to have seen after her death.

At the party, Healy discovers the film is missing, while March stumbles upon Shattuck's dead body and crosses paths with Amelia.

They take her to March's house, where she accuses her mother of colluding with car makers to suppress the catalytic converter, which regulates exhaust emissions.

Healy overpowers John Boy, but spares his life at Holly's behest and March secures the film from thugs sent by the auto executives.

[14] Black would later, upon promoting the release of the final film, speak disparagingly of the idea of the television series, stating that such a show "wouldn't have been any good".

[16] Black stated the change in time period helped as in contrast to "the divisiveness that we see now", the 1970s was full of multiculturalism and "was the aftermath of the protests and you got a sense that we are all in it together".

[17] Bagarozzi noted how the title The Nice Guys aimed to be ironic and non-descriptive, as the two main characters were "literally the two worst people that we could think of and then trying to make that fun," given "one breaks arms for a living and the other cons old ladies out of money.

[21] Matt Bomer,[22] Keith David, Beau Knapp,[23] and Kim Basinger were confirmed in October,[24] and Ty Simpkins[25] and Jack Kilmer were announced in November.

[27] While production designer Richard Bridgland saw a challenge in that the green Atlanta differed too much from the desertic Los Angeles, he found some fitting locations such as Dallas Austin's house, the design of which was based on what architect John Lautner found in Southern California, and the Atlanta Hilton, which had not changed at all since being built in 1976.

[30] In the United States, the film was originally scheduled for a June 17, 2016 release,[31] which Warner Bros. moved up to May 20, 2016, giving its previous date to Central Intelligence.

[5] In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising and The Angry Birds Movie, and was projected to gross around $10 million from 2,865 theaters in its opening weekend.

[38] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 323 reviews, with an average score of 7.6/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "The Nice Guys hearkens back to the buddy comedies of a bygone era while adding something extra, courtesy of a knowing script, and the irresistible chemistry of its leads.

"[41] IGN gave the film a 9/10, writing, "Working from a tight and sharp script that perfectly balances the characters like a yin and yang of screw-ups ensures The Nice Guys is an absolute joy every step of the way.

"[42] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote: "Forget about Kevin Hart and Ice Cube in Ride Along 2, or Zac Efron and Robert De Niro in Dirty Grandpa, or Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson in Zoolander 2.

[43] James Berardinelli described the film as reminiscent of Boogie Nights (1997), and wrote that "The Nice Guys is a refreshingly adult movie entering a marketplace saturated by teen-friendly superhero flicks and animated family fare.

[44] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that the film lacks the wistful, slyly political sense of history found in Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice (2014), also a quirky private investigator comedy set in the 1970s.

"[45] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "That the film mostly falls flat has far more to do with the largely unconvincing material rather than with the co-stars, who are more than game for the often clownish shenanigans Black and his co-writer Anthony Bagarozzi have concocted for them; in fit and starts [sic], the actors display a buoyant comic rapport."

McCarthy praised the film's production design (by Richard Bridgland) and costume design (by Kym Barrett), due to their "vivid reminders of how much L.A. has spruced itself up over the past 40 years", as well as the cinematography (by Philippe Rousselot), due to "the figurative and possibly even literal use of a smog filter to evoke a physically and morally toxic environment.