Is there something about the 1970s, and especially its seedier elements, that makes the decade especially conducive to cinematic look-backs? Think Boogie Nights, American Hustle, Inherent Vice - a trio of truly great films, with two of them admittedly having the leg-up of being directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The Nice Guys isn't in their league, but it shares with the two PTA ones a Los Angeles setting, and with all three a mood which feels just very suited to the movies. Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe are a good double act, with both showing pretty fair comic moves; Margaret Qualley shows up in what in retrospect could have been an audition for her turn in the 1969-set Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; and scenes are stolen by Angourie Rice as Gosling's precocious PI daughter.
