Drive (2011), The Big Short (2015), The Nice Guys (2016)

I didn't set out to but I've ended up having a sort of mini Ryan Gosling marathon over the last the nine days or so, so let's do a quick run through the films.

Drive (2011)

Based on the 2005 novel of the same name by James Sallis, Drive stars Gosling as a never named character who is a full time auto mechanic, part time stunt driver and part time getaway driver for higher. Gosling's character is a man of few words and seemingly no real interests outside of cars and driving them, that is until he meets a young mother (Carey Mulligan) and her son (Kaden Leos) who live in the same apartment as him. He befriends these two and there is an obvious attraction between him Mulligan, but she has a husband in prison who gets out about midway through the film. Carey's husband (Oscar Isaac) owes some 'protection money' from his time in prison to some nefarious types, and Gosling aggress to help him as his get away driver on one final job. Needless to say things don't go as planed. This movie is a curious blend, a character piece in the body of a exploration movie plot, yet it manages to navigate this bizarre hybrid with aplomb under the hand of Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. All of the actors in this do a great job and you will likely be surprised by the fact that Albert Brooks plays a badass, and manages to pull it off. Bryan Cranston also appears as Goslings boss and best friend. ***1/2

The Big Short (2015)

Gosling is part of the ensemble cast in this best picture Oscar nomine from last year. The Big Short is a look at the 2008 collapse of the U.S. housing bubble through the (mostly) true stories of a handful of people who saw it coming, and ended up making a lot of money off of it. This plot description might make you expect to hate these people, but for the most part they are rather sympathetic characters and horrified by the mess made of the mortgage market from the greed and short sightedness of others. Gosling plays Jared Vennett, a bond salesman at Deutsche Bank and probably the most self interested of the bunch. Vennett stumbles upon the existence of the bubble after he learns second hand that a Dr. Michael Burry (Christian Bale in probably the best of the many strong performances in the film), a California based neurologist turned hedge fund manger has convinced a number of big banks and financial houses to let him bet against the historically secure housing market. Vennett takes this information to a hedge fund manager and committed pessimist named Steve Eisman (Steve Carell) and eventually this information makes its way to others including two wizkid investors who enlist the aid of apocalyptic minded retired securities trader Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) to make a profit off it.

Now from the above description this sounds like it should be as dry as hell, but it isn't, its very compelling and watchable, even at over two hours in length. This is in large part due to the creative directing of Adam McKay, a maker of Will Ferrell comedies who somehow managed to get the tone for this just right. One of the ways that McKay injects an unexpected life into this film, and helps explain some of the more complicated economic plot points necessary for understanding what's happening on screen, is that he periodically takes a break in the action and has various celebrities
such as Margot Robbie, Anthony Bourdain and Selena Gomez explain them straight to the audience. This is a very clever and surprisingly original idea. The Big Short works on all cylinders, is both very entreating and informative. I would rank this after Spotlight as the second best film of last year. ****

The Nice Guys (2016)

I really expected more out of this after its much advertised 96% fresh Rotten Tomato's rating. The Nice Guys is a buddy action comedy set in 1977 Los Angeles and concerns an enforcer for hire(Russell Crowe) who, after a period as opinionates, teams with a faltering private detective (Gosling) and his persistent 13 year old daughter (Angourie Rice) to solve the murder of a porn star and the disappearance of a young woman. I love detective stories and things set in the 1970's, and Crowe and Gosling are great actors, but turn out to be only okay at comedy. This movie was often pretty flat, too many of the films best comic moments were given away in the trailers, the film seldom made me laugh but still held my interest, though I don't think it really found its grove until pretty late in the proceedings. Thinking back on it now though I suspect that its one of those movies that will be more enjoyable on second viewing then it was on first. Not remarkable in many ways, but in others, such as the climax, well executed. I'll have to see it again some time. ***