92% on Rotten Tomatoes
Chloe's thoughts: It's alright
Watch it if you: Want a subtle comedy poking fun at movie cliches; Are interested in a buddy cop movie that's not trash
I have been looking forward to this movie since it came out, but unfortunately that was around the time of some heavy assessments, and by the time I was free to watch it, it was no longer screening. Alas, since I don't torrent movies, I had to wait for it to be available to rent, and even then it was all rented out at the Hoyts Kiosks for the first two days. At long last, we managed to get our hands on it.
It's great that there's a good original film out, but unfortunately the marketing suffered quite a lot, and so I don't think many people ended up watching this, and the movie was quite a flop.
The film is a great buddy cop movie (how long has it been since the last good one?), starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as two very different private investigators looking into the mysterious disappearance of a young lady.
The plot is very intriguing, which is always a plus, but you end up realising that that's not the point.
In fact, the movie focuses more on trying to break down a lot of movie stereotypes and cliches, as it presents a more realistic crime-fighting movie. While the film's humour is really slapstick, it's also quite subtle in this way as you see funny stuff happening without anyone batting an eye (for example, in a struggle involving a gun and misfired bullets, random passersby may get hit; also, when you punch a glass window, you will probably bleed... a lot). So it's not the laugh-out-loud type of humour, but it's still quite a hilarious movie with a lot of very great small chuckles in there.
Ryan Gosling is the source of most of the slapstick here, and he was great in this, as was Russell Crowe. The surprise, though, was Angourie Rice, who played Gosling's daughter. She was surprisingly a good addition to the duo, and wasn't at all an annoying teenager that tagged along unnecessarily.
While the film does try to dismantle common movie tropes, the last fight sequence is where it becomes completely not realistic, and it's really clever and funny here. It's comparable to in Hot Fuzz where, after a movie of stelling the viewer that it's 'not that kind of movie' and where 'real life doesn't happen like that', the last fight sequence brings out all the stereotypes and cliches you've ever seen, and it's hilarious at how unrealistic all of it gets.
In the end, this is a fun movie with great music, taking us back to the 70s, and bringing us an interesting and original story. I'm not sure if it's worth the 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes, although I do understand why it would have that rating; Rotten Tomatoes is full of critics and they would all appreciate this type of movie. I think in this case, the average rating of the critics (7.5/10) is a better indicator of the movie's quality. So I would still recommend this film; even if it's not as great and amazing as I wanted it to be, it's still pretty good.
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