Shane Black's 2016 neo-noir buddy comedy The Nice Guys has become something of a cult classic, despite being less than a decade old. The film follows troubled private investigator Holland March (Ryan Gosling) and hired enforcer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) as they search for missing teenager Amelia (Margaret Qualley), whom Healy was supposed to protect. It allowed the two actors to really show off their comedic chops and chemistry, and that's it as close to perfect buddy comedy as you can get. It's funny, action-packed, and occasionally a little scary in a fun way, like each of the several times Marth is essentially thrown into an extended, painful fall and somehow manages to survive each time.

Even though Marth becomes convinced that he can't die (when in reality, he's probably drunk enough to ragdoll and not hurt himself more seriously), things get especially scary when he ends up at the bottom of a hill, next to a bloody corpse. March freaks out, as we all probably would, and the scary moment becomes kind of funny as he gasps and desperately tries to get away. But the audience who looked closely might have noticed something unusual about the deceased dead man: he is played by none other than Robert Downey Jr.

The body is missing about half of its face, and since the scene is at night, it makes it a little harder to identify. But eagle-eyed viewers could see that it was Downey covered in blood and burns in an uncredited cameo. He plays the body of porn producer Sid Shattuck, the financier of an experimental porn film that hid a vital message about a government conspiracy in its hardcore sex scenes. His wounds are gruesome and disturbing, but a slightly strengthened Healy is able to identify him as Shattuck using the contents of his wallet before the two push him over a fence in an attempt to distance themselves from the crime scene. (They also get up a bit in response to the corpse's abomination, but thankfully the movie is set in the 1970s and DNA testing won't really be around for another few decades.)

Unfortunately, they pick the wrong fence and end up throwing poor old dead Sid on a table in the center of what looks like a wedding or a very fancy birthday party, leading to a lot of screaming, causing the nice guys to run away as fast as they possibly can. .

Dark, surreal humor is Shane Black's trademarkand it's great that Downey was able to be a part of one of the darkest and funniest scenes in The Nice Guys, even if it's just an uncredited, easy-to-miss cameo. It might seem like Downey is too big of a star to handle such a non-role, especially since his turn as Tony Stark in Iron Man and The Avengers had already catapulted him to superstardom by 2015, but Downey and Black had their own history. to friends.

In 2005, Downey starred in Black's directorial debut, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Black became known for his work as a screenwriter, penning major action scripts such as Last Action Hero and The Long Kiss Goodnight, along with creating the Lethal Weapon film series, but he saw 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' as his 'anti-action movie' and went in a very different direction. There are still plenty of great buddy comedies out there, but Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a dialogue-heavy neo-noir black comedy that wasn't really what anyone expected, and unfortunately bombed at the time, just barely recouping its modest production. . budget.

The film has since become a cult classic (much like The Nice Guys) and is quite beloved, and is also responsible for Downey is entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Iron Man director Jon Favreau thought Downey's performance was perfect in the film and used it to win over executives, leading to Downey bringing on Shane Black as writer and director of Iron Man 3.

Downey was probably busy filming Avengers: Age of Ultron or Captain America: Civil War while filming The Nice Guys, but it's great that he still had some time to make an unceremonious cameo in his buddy movie .