Verbal Diorama

The Nice Guys, upon its release in May 2016, found itself facing off against a comedy sequel, an animated movie of a million-selling mobile game and two separate superhero franchise sequels. It's really no wonder it suffered at the U.S. box office. An original idea, from the always brilliant mind of Shane Black, needed room to breathe and find its feet. Sadly, it never got to do that. Had it been released in June, like it was supposed to, it might have made the $217 million that the other comedy buddy movie it swapped release dates with did. Can you tell I'm bitter about that? The Nice Guys had two big name stars (Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling), several up-and-comers (Margaret Qualley and the terrific Angourie Rice) and a Hollywood icon (Kim Basinger) in its cast. It followed Shane Black's other directorial efforts; his debut Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the 20th highest grossing movie of all time, Iron Man 3. It's really quite brilliant, actually. For the titular (and ironic) "nice guys who aren't