Once upon a time, Shane Black’s “The Nice Guys” might have become a hit.
That time, however, was not May 20-22, 2016, when the film opened in a distant fourth place behind that weekend’s box office champion, “The Angry Birds Movie.” Black was coming off the billion-dollar success of “Iron Man 3” when he decided to write and direct his film, an original buddy crime comedy in the same vein as his cult classic directorial debut, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Even then, he probably realized it was useless resisting the once unstoppable tide of superheroes and franchises, but darn it if he wasn’t going to try (much like his film’s offbeat heroes do their darnedest to curb the ever-turning wheel of systematic injustice).Based on a screenplay Black co-wrote with Anthony Bagarozzi, “The Nice Guys” winds the clock back for a sordid comical yarn of crime and corruption in haze-ridden…
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