Battling with expectations again. Shane Black made one of my all time faves (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), his scripts are loads of fun, I'm all up for a seventies throwback and it has two actors I generally like. But will these nice guys make my list of cinema's golden buddies? Probably. Not as high as I had hoped though. Not after a first watch that is. Sure, there's chemistry and all, most of the deadpan gags are hilarious, but some of the other jokes feel too forced and fall flat. Just like the movies does at times. As if it suffers from the smog as well. It lacks a bit of energy, panache, something like that. Maybe more songs would have helped. A soundtrack can really elevate a movie. This one starts with Papa Was a Rolling Stone. That's ace, but after that the music never really becomes a driving force again. Nixon is a hoot though and it's funny and engaging for the most part. But, for now, without an exclamation mark. I'll need to watch this again some time. Until then, I can't help but wonder how this movie would have turned out with Robert Downey Jr. in it.