It has been 11 years since Shane Black injected some much-needed cheeky chaos into the buddy cop genre with his directorial debut Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. That film relied on the offbeat chemistry between Robert Downey jnr and Val Kilmer as they teamed up on the search for a missing girl in LA. For his new film The Nice Guys, Black has also created a misfit pair and set them loose on LA, only this time the pair are Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling and the period is the 1970s.Crowe's Jackson Healy is a brutish slob who engages in a little effective communication between his fists and men with loose morals. Gosling's Holland March is a heavy drinking, widowed private eye who balances life as a single dad to his daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) with odd jobs for old ladies who are seeing things that just aren't there.Opening with the greatest OMG masturbation scene in recent movie history, the plot involves the apparent suicide of fading porn star Misty Mountains, a case which pulls Healy and March into each other's worlds and forces them to reluctantly team up.Gosling's happy-go-lucky stoner charm bristles against Crowe's brutish thuggery and Rice provides the cherub-faced, clear-eyed innocence needed to keep everyone on track. While the plot may occasionally be too overly concerned with mimicking the confusion of traditional noir, the film is largely saved by its performers and generally sharp wit.It's not nearly as iconic as '70s noir films like Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye or Roman Polanski's Chinatown - it gives several knowing nods to both - but it's certainly an entertaining ride in good company. The addition of the father-daughter dynamic also helps to give the film an edge and Black is adept at balancing slapstick and high action jinks, although he sometimes allows his set pieces to outstay their welcome.It's not cerebral entertainment by any standards, and it's about 20 minutes too long, but its laid-back charm and period detail make it an easy enough nostalgic, de-saturated-colour pill to swallow.The fact that everyone involved is clearly having plenty of fun makes it infectious and difficult to dislike but it's also like an amusement park ride, easy enough to forget once it's all over...