Born in New Zealand and bred in Australia, Russell Crowe has been makin’ movies, singin’ songs and delightin’ ’round the world for almost four decades. He’s portrayed generals and goof-offs, cops who sing and sting, demons and diviners, pastors and priests, gladiators, reporters, whistleblowers and more than his fair share of murderers (in reality and virtual reality).
In honor of Crowe’s 60th birthday this month, Midwest Film Journal is celebrating the actor. We’ll look at the lightning-rod controversy of his 1992 Australian breakout, the genre pictures with which he broke out in Hollywood circa 1995, his early-2000s ascent into a leading man with consecutive Oscar nominations, his occasional zags into unexpected genres like comedy, musicals and exploitative schlock, and many things in between. This April, MFJ truly has A Murder of Crowes.
The Nice Guys is a perfect movie for a lot of reasons. I’ll hear no argument to the contrary, so let’s just start there:
It’s a culmination of Shane Black’s directorial and screenwriting journey thus far, achieving a perfect balance between his signature sardonic nature and earnest heart that none of his previous work could rival. It’s a well-calibrated period spoof, riffing on gumshoe movies and 1970s crime shows while also fully, authentically embracing their aesthetic trappings. And it’s the funniest Ryan Gosling has ever been — no easy bar to clear.
The film’s disappointing theatrical performance will always guarantee some degree of underappreciation and has almost certainly sealed off the possibility of even one sequel let alone the endless follow-ups it deserves. (At least now we have Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series to satiate our serial detective satire needs.) Thankfully, The Nice Guys has achieved significant cult status in the eight years since its release, with outlets and individuals all over the internet recognizing it among Black’s best work and as one of the all-time great buddy comedies.
And while the leading pair’s chemistry has, of course, always been at the center of praise for the film, I rarely hear much about Russell Crowe’s performance specifically. It’s easy to see why Gosling’s goofy performance as Holland March steals the show for a lot of people, but it’s equally obvious that March doesn’t work to the same degree without Crowe holding shit down as straight man Jackson Healy. I’d argue Crowe might even have the harder job of the two.
March and Healy are two sides of an ill-gotten coin. Both make a living on domestic dilemmas that exist somewhere in the gray area between “could probably be sorted out through conversation” and “worthy of police attention.”
March is a bumbling private eye who modestly succeeds primarily by taking advantage of the short-term memory loss and dementia-induced delusions of elderly women, indefinitely “investigating” missing persons who are already dead and getting paid by the hour. He’s fashionable and quick-witted but gets no respect from his daughter Holly (his only “friend”) because she’s observant enough to see through his ruse. Healy is a professional tough guy, muscle that you hire to send a strong message to someone you don’t like. Unlike March, Healy is actually fairly good at what he does; unfortunately, taking money from teenagers to scare off creeps earns you neither respect nor likeability.
March is charismatically bad at what he does. Healy is effective at being a charisma black hole. Together, they stumble onto an actual crime conspiracy and, in pursuing it, manage to do some good and achieve a sense of purpose along the way.
Black’s script focuses more squarely on March’s arc than Healy’s not because it’s more important to the film so much as because Healy’s journey sports a greater emotional distance from point A to point B, thus requiring more dialogue exchanges. Healy, for all his shortcomings, is more content with who he is at the start of the film. Whereas March needs to put in more conscious effort to become a better person, father and contributing member of society, Healy’s arc is a bit more like finding the emotional light switch deep inside his soul and simply flipping it back on.
This verbal focus on March means Healy’s development rests more on Crowe’s performance, and this is where he really shines. I’ve written another piece for this series on Crowe’s unbridled portrayal of maniacal loathing for humanity in Unhinged. That’s a wildly different turn from Crowe, and he’s working from a much weaker script, but it similarly exhibits his ability to bear the weight of a character in a movie that otherwise isn’t terribly concerned with telling you all that he’s going through. Both films are also exemplary, in opposite directions, for how they showcase Crowe’s range and confident freedom as an actor during what some might reductively call the “over-the-hill” stage in his career.
Unlike March, Healy is more a man of action than words. His actions may not always be just, but when the going gets tough, he’d sooner do something than stand there. To convey this, Crowe’s line readings are shorter, quicker and more hurried than Gosling’s, as if to suggest he’s perpetually sick of talking about it and wants to move onto the “doing” stage. Healy is more relaxed in tone and measured in reaction than March; Crowe speaks in a low, almost whisper-like cadence through much of the film, his dry baritone voice flatly declaring the facts of reality in a “you should already know this” kind of way.
Likewise, Crowe’s body language communicates a lower energy and greater confidence than his partner’s. He sits back on his heels with his hands in his pockets, taking in his surroundings with a tired look on his face while Gosling jumps, screams and whines his way through the many difficult scenarios in which March finds himself.
I could rattle on with broad descriptions of Crowe’s acting throughout the film, but what really satisfies me about his performance are the tiny, granular moments he chooses to inject into Healy’s character — a brief raising of eyebrows in modest surprise and instant acceptance; an uncharacteristically bright smile paired with a sudden lifting of vocal register to “play nice”; a confused double-take at yet another example of March’s ineptitude. One of my favorites is his unusual but perfect delivery of a single, upturned “Yeah,” right at the end of the film that manages to convey Healy’s tired resignation to the fact that there are just some things about yourself you can’t change, and sometimes that’s OK.
These choices sound mundane, but they bring such a lived-in quality to Healy that makes him work so well even with less narrative real estate than March. It’s the kind of thing that deserves to be seen more than talked about. If you’ve never seen the movie, watch it; if you have, go back and look. Gosling’s stellar performance will make his genius readily apparent, but pay special attention to Crowe’s subtle reactions during wide shots and his deliveries of simple lines. Jackson Healy might not be among Crowe’s most outwardly impressive feats of acting, but he makes masterful use of his subtle comedic skill and timing to a degree that is unparalleled in his other roles, and it’ll always be one of my favorites for that.