Director: Ruben Fleischer
Writer: Will Beall
Stars: Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, and Emma Stone
Gangster Squad is the story of a select group of LAPD officers working above the law to fight Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) in 1950s LA. Cohen runs the City with impunity. He has most of the police force, judiciary, and prosecutors office in his pocket in LA and the surrounding cities. He dreams large and plans to be the top man in the City; nothing is going to stop him.
Enter Chief Parker (Nick Nolte). Parker enlists Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) to start a clandestine police squad whose purpose is to take down Mickey Cohen. The men are to operate outside regular legal channels. When they make their move they go in with no names, no badges, and no mercy. O’Mara’s pregnant wife, Connie (Mireille Enos), is not happy with the news of the squad, but eventually helps O’Mara select his recruits. In short order he has his team.
The first sting goes horribly wrong with two of the squad ending up in the Burbank jail. If not for the well-timed intervention of Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), a cop who originally rejected O’Mara’s offer, the whole operation would have been finished before it started. But Wooters involvement also brings trouble; he’s dating Grace Faraday (Emma Stone)–Mickey Cohen’s current squeeze.
Gangster Squad is a bizarre combination of The Untouchables and L.A. Confidential that goes horribly wrong. It is a perfect example of style over substance.
The greatest failing of the movie is the story, followed closely by poor editing. There are giant leaps in narrative events–in effect too much happens too soon. Couple this situation with editing where it appears key scenes were left on the cutting room floor and you have a very choppy film. The director, Ruben Fleischer, also makes poor choices. In a film where all the gangsters are horrible shots and the good guys have incredible aim, he choses to show a pivotal shoot-out in painful slow motion. As literally hundreds of bullets fly, the mobsters only successfully destroy the hotel lobby center piece while O’Mara & company lay waste to them. As yet another piece of fruit slowly flies in the air and is finally destroyed by another whizzing bullet, you begin to notice that six shooters are now ten shooters and the machine guns appear to have a limitless supply of ammunition.
For a film with a well-known cast, the acting is surprisingly mediocre. Brolin and Stone appear to be bored, Penn is overly hammy, and Gosling chose to use and amazingly wispy voice. (Admittedly, I have not watched many Ryan Gosling films so this may in fact be his actual voice, but I have never noticed it before.) The only actor who appeared to be trying was Giovanni Ribisi as Conway Keeler, the smart guy of the squad.
The only success of the film is its look. The set design, art direction, and costuming all worked to convey a sense of a stylized and very cinematic take of gangland LA.
Grade = D
Click on image to view trailer.
January 11th, 2013 at 8:14 AM
I can understand your points, but personally? I loved the movie, it gave me exactly what I expected from it.
January 11th, 2013 at 8:24 AM
That’s why everyone has movies they love that they can’t explain. Mine is “Hudson Hawk”.
Your point about expectation is good. I was expecting something different.
January 11th, 2013 at 9:47 AM
I was hoping this might be good, despite the trailers, but judging by its critical response, I think I’ll skip it. Nice review.
January 11th, 2013 at 3:24 PM
Sorry to crush your hopes.
The idea was good, but the execution was not.
January 11th, 2013 at 10:43 AM
Good review. It ain’t all that bad, it could have just been so much more with the cast, crew, and premise they had at their disposal. Oh well, at least it was a January release that didn’t make me want to kill myself.
January 11th, 2013 at 3:25 PM
Well, that’s one good thing it did.
January 11th, 2013 at 1:56 PM
This was supposed to have been released last Fall, but was another victim of the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shootings. Trailers containing a sequence where gangsters fired on an audience from behind the screen were immediately taken out of circulation. The theater ambush sequence was re-shot in a Chinatown setting. I agree the film is a mess. Penn’s Mickey Cohen makeup looks like a Dick Tracy villain. These are all good actors, but nobody comes out of this looking very good.
January 11th, 2013 at 3:29 PM
Great comment about Penn looking like a Dick Tracy villain. So true.
January 11th, 2013 at 3:59 PM
I can’t really take credit for the Dick Tracy reference. I saw it in a review (can’t remember where), and it just rang so true.
January 11th, 2013 at 4:19 PM
The trailer never appealed to me anyway
January 11th, 2013 at 5:05 PM
The same for me.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:25 AM
This film didn’t appeal to me much, but I saw it anyway. I thought it was a bit of fun, nothing special.
January 14th, 2013 at 1:31 PM
That’s a good assessment.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:06 PM
I just reviewed this movie and you are 100% correct. What a poorly made movie. May I suggest you check out Ryan’s better performances in Drive, Lars and the Single Girl and Half Nelson. I reviewed all of them.
January 14th, 2013 at 11:55 PM
The three Ryan Gosling films you mention are great, especially Half Nelson. He’s also very good in Crazy Stupid Love. Such a good actor. Felt like he was just smirking his way through Gangster Squad. I don’t think anyone came off very well in this.
January 15th, 2013 at 1:00 PM
I’m blaming the director for the performances. All these actors are accomplished. For all of them to give overall mediocre performances is unimaginable unless that is what the director wanted.
January 15th, 2013 at 12:56 PM
Of those I have only watched “Drive”, which was my #1 from 2011. I’ll check out the others.
January 19th, 2013 at 12:52 PM
Style over Substance is a great way of putting it!
Man, either they were horrible shots in that hotel lobby, or they really hated the Christmas decorations! haha. I chose to decide they both must have celebrated Kwanza instead of Christmas. haha
The performances were lacking. you’re right. I expected more. Boo to that.
January 19th, 2013 at 3:49 PM
My impression was they were just collecting a pay check.
Actually I thin they are practitioners of Festivus, and they were performing the feats of strengths.
January 19th, 2013 at 4:33 PM
LOL. YES! Festivus!! haha
http://cdn4.blogs.babble.com/famecrawler/files/2010/12/Festivus.jpg