The Nice Guys

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Shane Black/Starring: Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Kim Basinger, Keith David and Margaret Qualley

I really liked the idea of a buddy comedy starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Neither actor is known for comedic roles and the unlikely pairing is enough to intrigue even the most casual movie-goer. Unfortunately for director Shane Black's The Nice Guys, the concept alone isn't enough to overcome the film's deficiencies. How can a comic send-up of a noir set in the mid to late 1970s' possibly go wrong when the period and setting offer so much potential for satire and farce? Well, this is Hollywood; where any number of issues dealing with conception and execution can derail a film. For Black's flick, a dearth of gags is hardly the problem. What is the problem are the lack of quality gags and funny scenes, which fail to transmute grins to guffaws. As is so often the case with a comedy so heavily promoted as Black's film, the funniest stuff is in the trailer and if what you see in the preview doesn't elicit a giggle, then you're out of luck.

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling play detectives Jackson Healy and Holland March, respectively; who are brought together by chance when each find themselves embroiled in the same case involving a porn star who commits suicide. A person of interest in the star's death is a young woman named Amelia Kuttner, whose connection to the death is later made clear.

The meeting between detectives is hardly auspicious as Healy roughs up March after mistaking him for a cad chasing young girls. The bumbling March is an amusing contrast to Healy; a no-nonsense, violent man who gets quick results. Because Healy isn't technically a detective, he hires March to help him find Amelia. Their search leads them all over disco-era L.A. Along for the ride is March's young daughter Holly (Angourie Rice), who becomes a third member of the sleuthing team after she ignores her father's repeated commands to stay home.

Healy and March run afoul of some thugs hired to find Amelia, who represent an organized crime syndicate in Detroit. The baddies try to kill the detectives at a party where the two are chasing down a lead.

The early scenes show some comic promise as Holly proves to be the most level-headed member of the trio. Not a lot of snappy repartee passes between the three but their chemistry at least makes them worthwhile company.

In time, Healy and March meet with the head of the Justice Department, Judith Kuttner (Kim Basinger), who has more than a passing interest in finding her daughter. She hires the two detectives to find Amelia.
Amelia's activities with a protest group who demonstrate against L.A.'s smog problem and the pollution generated by the Big Three auto makers in Detroit comes to light. The detectives discover Amelia is behind the making of a porn/protest film intended to be shown at an industry car show as a way of shaming the auto makers.

As Healy, March and Holly dodge hitmen and follow leads, they eventually discover Judith Kuttner is actually in cahoots with the auto makers and is intent on stopping her daughter. When the protest film is shown at the car show, Kuttner's thugs attempt to steal it, which results in a showdown with Holly and March.

The plot isn't exactly Chinatown though we shouldn't expect or want it to be but the story takes a detour from comedy to semi-seriousness, which places a kink in the fun.

Gosling shows a surprising flare for comedy though he could do better with better material. Crowe is mostly the straight man but he too shows some comedic ability. A scene where the two dispose of a body by throwing it over a wall, where it lands on a party below is amusing though we saw it coming in the trailer. Most scenes are all set-up with no comic pay-off. Gosling is at times over-the-top, particularly a scene where he whimpers uncontrollably.

As the film progressed, the silence in the theater became overpowering. What might have been a fairly funny noir parody became one more forgettable afternoon at the multiplex.

For all heavy promotion the film received and the commercial tie-ins (never trust a movie with tie-ins), the movie just came across as a factory product. Too bad; both Gosling and Crowe were game for some something different. The eternal question: will this become a franchise? The eternal answer; wait and see.

The Water Diviner

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Russell Crowe/Starring: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Yilmaz Erdogan, Cem Yilmaz, Jai Courtney and Dylan Georgiades

The Water Diviner is one of those films directed by a major star which purportedly tells a true story; one that should be fairly compelling but is only competently told. Of course I'm also thinking of Angelina Jolie's relatively recent Unbroken, another middling story attempting to address the horrors of war. One might have expected Russell Crowe's feature film debut to garner as much attention and advance notice but curiously, I never saw one trailer for the film nor is it currently playing in more than one local theater. It arrives almost stillborn and it's easy to see why Warner Brothers had little confidence in the film; a promising beginning gives way to flaccid storytelling. What should have been a visceral experience became an okay history lesson; one that might only hold a passing interest to viewers.

Based on the story of an Australian man named Joshua Connor, whose three sons died in the Gallipoli Peninsula during the British and Australian armies bloody clash with the Turks in WWI. The Water Diviner, based on a book of the same title by Andrew Anastasios and Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios, tells the story of his quest to find and return his son's remains to Australia.

When the film begins, we see Connor (Russell Crowe) using a divining rod in the arid Australian desert to locate a water for a well. Wielding it with great skill, Connor is able to pinpoint an underground source; calling on a mystical sense that proves to be crucial later in the story. Connor returns home to his wife, who still insists her husband read The Arabian Nights to the three empty beds his sons once occupied.

The story takes a tragic turn when Connor's wife Eliza (Jacqueline McKenzie), still tormented with grief four years after her son's deaths, takes her own. Bereaved, Connor decides to honor his wife's wish that her son's bodies be returned to Australian soil by traveling to Turkey.

Connor encounters many difficulties when he arrives. Not only must he contend with the exotic local culture, but Connor runs into a near impenetrable British and Australian military bureaucracy that forbids any civilian contact with the former battlefield. Fiercely determined to accomplish his mission, Connor is helped along by a family who runs the Istanbul hotel in which he lodges. A wife of a soldier who was reported lost in the battle, Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), her young son Orhan (Dylan Georgiades) and her brother-in-law Omer (Steve Bastoni) play host to Connor while he tries to overcome the British army's restrictions. Ayshe is naturally averse to Connor's presence when she learns of his quest. But with the family's help, Connor is able to secure passage to the former battlefield, where Australian soldiers and two Turkish army officers lead the search for soldier's remains. The search proves to be an uneasy collaboration; foreign army presence and a battle that is still raw in Turkish memory complicate the effort. Though the Australian officer Lt. Col. Hughes (Jai Courtney) barely conceals his impatience with Connor's request to find his son's remains, the two Turkish officers, Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) and Cemal (Cem Yilmaz) are more sympathetic. As Major Hasan explains, "He is the only father who came to the battlefield." Hughes reluctantly allows Connor to assist in the search for his sons.

The wounds of war run deep for both sides as Major Hasan, a participant in the former battle, offers Hughes specific, geographic details about fighting itself.

As he wanders the battlefield, Connor's uncanny water-divining skills serve him well as he manages to locate the remains of two sons. Puzzled as to why his third son isn't among the remains, the search resumes.

While the exhumations continue, the Turkish officers receive word that the Greeks have attacked the Turkish coast, which triggers nationalistic fervor across the country and a renewed contempt for English and Australians alike.

With his unerring sixth sense, Connor determines his third son may be alive and though Major Hasan and Cemal initially refuse additional assistance, they eventually relent.

Meanwhile, Connor becomes embroiled in Ayshe's domestic troubles. Ayshe tries desperately to fend off Omer's aggressive efforts to marry; her objections stemming from her belief her husband could still be alive. Connor unwisely intervenes in a violent exchange between the two; inadvertently inviting an assault upon his person by Omer and his thuggish friends.

Connor eventually learns of the monastery where his son may be kept and with the help of Major Hasan and Cemal, he joins them and other soldiers on a battle-bound train, which results in a small disaster.

The end of Connor's search leads to what seems like a forgone conclusion though a twist of sorts provides some surprise. And-by-the-way subtitles about WWI casualties and those missing in battle precede the end credits but they seem unnecessary. Don't we know by now that WWI was the 20th century's first major meat grinder?

Why doesn't this story work? Where did Crowe fail? Alas, skilled actors rarely make good directors and though Crowe gives the old college try, he can't transmute material with great potential into dramatic gold. It isn't difficult to capture the Australian outback and Turkish landscape in breathtaking long shots or the inside of mosque, where Connor stares transfixed at a beautiful, blue cupola. More challenging is drawing strong, convincing performances from a cast, which he does reasonably well though Dylan Georgiades is little more than a cute kid.

The battle scenes, where we see two of Connor's sons meet their demise, should be horrific and yet they could be any WWI combat sequence from any war movie. Of course the film will evoke memories of Peter Weir's splendid Gallipoli; whose depiction of the battle was attended by a wrenching immediacy, which left the audience with a profound sense of loss and futility.

The Water Diviner belongs on television as a Showtime or HBO original, not as a theatrical release. It might be a very welcome presence on a small screen, where its modest narrative ambitions and sweeping visuals might beguile a late night audience. But on a multiplex screen, it makes for mediocre matinee fare.