Freewheeling buddy comedy has lots of mature content.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 17+?
Any Positive Content?
Sex, Romance & Nudity
a lot
Focus on the porn industry. A young teen ogles a porn magazine and later a naked woman (her breasts are very much on display). Women are shown walking around topless an/or in sheer/scant clothing. Bare backsides seen. A man sits on the toilet with only a magazine covering his privates. In one scene, a teen is (presumably) watching a porn movie -- no images shown, but the sound is turned up high. A porn star doesn't think twice about discussing certain sex acts in a teen's presence. Quick clip of a porn movie shows a couple having sex, seen from the side. Teens make out with much older characters.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
Frequent, realistic action violence: Characters are punched, shot at, killed, and more; one falls to his death with a giant splat, which is shown. The action is bone-crunching, sometimes relentless, and at times graphic. Children are frequently in peril.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
A few products/brand names spotted include Mercedes Benz, Orange Crush, and Tower Records.
Positive Messages
a little
Amid the characters' iffy actions/decisions is the idea that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Also, redemption is available for anyone who wants it. And it's important to do the right thing, even if it doesn't solve everything.
Positive Role Models
very little
While neither Healy nor March would win any major ethics/character awards, they both operate with a certain sense of right vs. wrong, falling mostly on this side of right. March is also a devoted father, though his specific parenting choices are iffy. He also drives drunk. A teen girl is the movie's moral center, though even she does some things that put her in harm's way.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that The Nice Guys is a '70s-set action movie/buddy comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. It taps into all that was racy/iffy about that time period, including the rise of the porn industry in Los Angeles, the generally somewhat-lax approach to parenting (i.e. drinking/smoking in front of your kids), and more. Teen girls are shown flirting or making out with men twice and three times their age, drinking in the presence of adults, and discussing sex acts openly with adults. Women walk around topless; you also see bare bottoms and lots of skimpy outfits. When characters watch a porn movie, the volume is turned up high; characters having sex in a porn film are shown from the side. The film is also laced with profanity (including "f--k," "s--t," and more) and drug use (mostly weed, and by adults) and has a lot of realistic, sometimes-graphic violence (shooting, killing, fighting, a character falling to his death with a giant splat, children in peril). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
Sexualisation of children, Very strange and unnecessary.
Surprised more people reviewing this didn’t mention the frequent and unnecessary addition of the sexualisation of children. Eg Why was it necessary for the daughter to say she was there for a “ rim job” , or some random young boy riding his bike offering to expose himself discussing the size of his genitalia. Many more examples that were not required for the plot including adults in the film having a conversation with the 13yr old about Anal sex. You have to ask why ?? Would have been an ok film without this but there was something very wrong and the pedophilic undertones were sickening. Really unnecessary if they were just trying to make a half decent movie. So again asking why ? . Something really up with this film.
This should be dumped in the sea. It is uneven as a a film and derivitative, There are much better films in the genre that don't stoop to exploiting children inside their sex jokes; it was very weird and I felt the director and writer were pushing their pedophiliac tendencies inside a generic film. I left nauseous.
What's the Story?
No one would award private investigator Holland March (Ryan Gosling) a Father of the Year award anytime soon: He's a booze hound who's relied too much on his smart, resourceful daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), since his wife died in a fire; he hasn't been the same since. He tends to take retainers from the elderly for cases he doesn't really work on much, but when a retiree insists that she's seen her reportedly dead porn star niece alive and well, March finds himself neck-deep in a hunt for another young woman, the runaway daughter of a city official (Kim Basinger). The girl has hired her own unofficial gumshoe, the envelope-pushing hothead Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), to get March off her trail. But March isn't the only one tailing the daughter; a few gun-toting men are, too. In due time, Healy and March team up to figure out what exactly is going on.
THE NICE GUYS is full of vim and vinegar in the best way, channeling a 1970s L.A. vibe that's been bungled by many other filmmakers but is channeled to great effect here. The result is a buddy comedy that's fresh and fun, if flawed. On the plus side, Gosling and Crowe share such a great chemistry that they should bottle it and sell it to other buddy-comedy franchises. And Rice is a revelation as Gosling's daughter Holly, going toe to toe with the two stars. The pacing is rollicking, the look and feel a perfect breezy-raunchy 1970s. The film taps into nostalgia but feels thoroughly modern in its spirit.
That said, take this film too seriously, and you're bound to be disappointed by how it wraps up, because the plot that drives this vehicle has more holes than Swiss cheese. Of course, that may be the point, as it tweaks its genre, questioning the need for large, ponderous reasons for bad behavior. Good, old-fashioned human blinders and a misplacement of what you might call "core beliefs" may just be enough. (We can't say much more without giving the plot away.) Sometimes, even the baddest of the bunch may have lofty intentions that amount to simple delusion or ignorance. But isn't that how humans sometimes justify their smallest -- and biggest -- decisions?
How does the film portray sex? Is it valued as part of a loving relationship? What role do women play in the story? How does that reflect the movie's '70s setting?
MPAA explanation:
violence, sexuality, nudity, language and brief drug use
Last updated:
May 21, 2024
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