Nice Girls 2024 Movie Review

Well, after that last season of Emily in Paris, I didn’t think there could be anything more disastrous set in France, at least for another month (since Part 2 comes in September), but it looks like I was wrong because boy did I find this movie ridiculously tedious. Okay, I might not know anything about French culture, but whatever was happening with the jokes in this film probably didn’t even make the French laugh. Maybe it’s a translation problem, and I’m overreacting, but this is just how I felt about this film as a non-native, and I don’t think it would be fair to hide any of my negative feelings for the sake of niceties. Nah, I realize that didn’t work very well, but with my apologies, let’s dive into why Nice Girls was such a massive disappointment for me.

I went into this film with no expectations and without having seen a trailer or anything, only the movie poster and the IMDb description. With that idea in my head, I was expecting some cool badassery from two women who are cops and like to dress in 80s fashion, but it seems like I was completely off. Nice Girls does tell the story of two cops trying to solve a mystery and also save the city of Nice, but not in the wild way you’d imagine. Yes, some action sequences are fun and some make you wonder how far they went with their idea of feminism, but ultimately, none of it is entertaining enough for you to stick through the plot. There are two things that matter in this story. One is what happened to Ludo and the other is what’s going to happen in Nice. The first of the two is kind of an abandoned plot that comes back near the end. I will admit the end is quite the nice touch, but how the film gets there is just so haphazard that I’d laud you for reaching that finish line.

I’ve got to admit, the non-Frenchness of the film is quite interesting, and if the jokes had landed for me, I’d have actually found this movie somewhat amusing. There are no glamorous outfits, no sexual anything, except for a couple of 16+ references (I know, shocker), and the best bit is that the women don’t conform to your French stereotypes. They’re not perfectly dressed with a bold red lip, wearing their nautical t-shirts; they’re just ordinary. I’ve got to admit though that Leo is not a fun character; she’s almost as obnoxious as Emily but definitely more tolerable.

Melanie on the other hand is much more of a “nice” girl, and is actually quite the fun character. There’s nothing 2 dimensional about them, but seeing as I got a little lost in the film, I didn’t realize that until I started writing this article. If you ask me, the beginning and the end of the film work perfectly fine, it’s how we get from the start to finish that doesn’t work. If only there was a more structured approach, I might’ve been more keen on finding out what really happened to Ludo and what connection the girls have to the big threat that Nice faces. I suppose I’m not the best person to review this film because I don’t particularly enjoy comedy police procedurals in general, but as a movie-watching experience, this one was quite the letdown for me.

Action-wise, this film manages to pack some punches, but when it comes to the comedic turns of said action scenes, it really falls flat. I cannot emphasize this enough, but it’s likely that the dialogue just doesn’t do anything for me because of the English translation. A francophone would likely feel differently. Also, in general, I wouldn’t recommend watching a film dubbed, whatever language it may be in, unless you’re struggling to follow the plot, but with a dub like this one has, don’t bother switching over.

In terms of performances, because the film is so over the top and doesn’t really promise anything deep, there isn’t much the actors can do with their roles, and that’s all fine. Both the lead actresses are fun to watch, and they have good chemistry, whether it’s when they’re fighting or being besties. Bat’s definitely an endearing character who comes and goes randomly, but the whole love story angle just didn’t make any sense to me. If you want to switch off your brain and just watch something to pass the time, then Nice Girls could be the film for you.

You know, at the end of the day, Nice Girls doesn’t bring anything new to the table, despite gender-swapping your buddy-cop genre. There is nothing deep about this swap; it literally feels as if this movie was written for men, but then in the last moment, they were replaced by women (you know, like Ripley in Alien), and so there’s no emotional depth or any kind of vulnerability to the characters that would make this film more bearable. There’s certainly nothing wrong with swapping genders for a genre film, but what you do with it can make all the difference, and I personally thought this film didn’t do very well there.

There’s nothing in Nice Girls that makes you want to keep watching, not the characters, not their connections, not even the main subplot of Ludo’s death, there is basically no room for curiosity because of how haphazardly the story is stitched together. I suppose in a way the film was a missed opportunity for bringing back the fun of 80s cops films, but with women in the leading roles. It’s neither serious nor humorous enough to actually enjoy, which is probably why it falls apart. The film tries to cover every theme under the roof and doesn’t even give us surface-level anything for these themes. At the end of the day, I would really not recommend this film. But, if you still want to know, I’d give Nice Girls 1.5 stars out of 5.