Directed by:
Ruben FleischerScreenplay:
Will BeallCinematography:
Dion BeebeComposer:
Steve JablonskyCast:
Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi, Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Mireille Enos, Michael Peña, Robert Patrick, Jon Polito (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and - if he has his way - every wire bet placed west of Chicago. And he does it all with the protection of not only his own paid goons, but also the police and the politicians who are under his control. It's enough to intimidate even the bravest, street-hardened cop... except, perhaps, for the small, secret crew of LAPD outsiders led by Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) and Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who come together to try to tear Cohen's world apart. The Gangster Squad is a colorful retelling of events surrounding the LAPD's efforts to take back their nascent city from one of the most dangerous mafia bosses of all time. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (15)
An unpleasantly loud burst bubble, drowning one of the most promising acting ensembles of the season. Here there may be enough style for two movies, but barely enough momentum for ten minutes. Will Beall's script puts clichéd lines in the mouths of its characters, which even names like Ryan Gosling or Josh Brolin struggle to deliver while maintaining any credibility. Should it be relegated to a story of antiheroes on a quest for justice? Perhaps. But I don't mind at all that Gangster Squad is ultimately the most worn-out trash, because that's exactly what attracted me to it. What bothers me is that it is nothing else, and in key plot twists it just rehashes bits and pieces from The Untouchables, Carlito's Way, and Public Enemies.
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I can't help but feel like whenever Hollywood tackles serious historical films these days, they often miss the mark. Gangster Squad had everything going for it—a killer cast (and I mean seriously great; every actor here gets under your skin, and that’s rare), plus a solid story with the potential to be truly epic. You could feel it. But then they completely overdid the action. It’s like they cranked it up to 11, with endless shootouts where nobody seems to die, and the action just feels chaotic, with no real structure. The scenes are so poorly staged that it’s hard to follow, and honestly, if this crew were really that reckless, they’d have been wiped out in the first few minutes. It’s a huge shame because I was ready for an awesome gangster flick. If it weren’t for the over-the-top action, we might’ve actually gotten one.
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Shallow popcorn flick that lacks the soul, the atmosphere and that one memorable scene that have always made the gangster genre so attractive and rewarding to viewers. There are many moments, especially the last ten minutes, that were written following the manual "How to make an unwanted parody of a genre quickly and easily." The only thing that keeps it afloat is Josh Brolin’s manly charisma. On the whole, it's as routine and stupid as Zombieland, which I expected from Fleischer, so there's no question of disappointment. And please, don’t give me that “Inspired by a True Story” line.
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A routine affair, but definitely not a complete disaster. It's surprising that a lot of otherwise excellent and very inventive creators and actors are behind this very average film. I enjoyed the raw fights and the decent gunfights, the ultra-cool Penn and the likeable Brolin, though he is much better on the opposite side of the law, like in American Gangster. It's not nearly as intricate, skillfully written, and technically precise as, for example, Ridley Scott’s film, but it's worth seeing once. Purely average.
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Six brave and incorruptible men against one serious candidate for plastic surgery and a stay in a psychiatric clinic. I wouldn’t have been bothered at all by Fleischer’s attempt to adapt this strange mix of gangster and noir motifs to the tastes of comic-book readers and gamers if the film wasn’t a failure on more basic levels: development of the characters, creation of dramatic tension, logic of action, consistency of atmosphere. The whole film consistently adheres to comic-book stylisation in the mould of Dick Tracy (from which Penn’s psychotic troll most likely escaped), and I won’t mention the ill-considered violence of numerous scenes, and the fascist methods of the “hunters” (who, unlike the protagonists of De Palma’s The Untouchables, obviously have no moral inhibitions) aren’t worthy of comment. However, the inclination toward heroic pathos is much more common than the deliberate parodying of the genre. Though they look good on the posters, they are also as flat as the posters as they pay the price for going from one extreme to the other. Neither the content nor the manner of storytelling offers anything that could draw us in or make us fear for the protagonists characters, or at least spark our interest in how the story will continue. As a brutally straightforward and straightforwardly brutal shoot ’em up (unfortunately with supremely unclear action scenes, including the fistfights), Gangster Squad can make for a pleasant evening, but it also leaves a bitter aftertaste. I consider the failure to make a better film with such an excellent cast, an Oscar-winning cinematographer and a highly capable soundtrack composer to be an act of Hollywood-style organised crime. 65%
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