Gangster Squad

Gangster Squad is directed by Ruben Fleischer and written by Will Beal. It stars Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Patrick and Michael Pena. Music is by Steve Jablonski and cinematography by Dion Beebee.

Los Angeles is being brought to its knees by crime boss Mickey Cohen (Penn). In one of the darkened offices of the police department, a special squad of officers is being assembled. Given free licence to bring Cohen and his operations down by any means necessary, the Gangster Squad fight fir with fire.

Loosely based on real life facts, Gangster Squad is a good old slice of machine gun etiquette. An all star cast get to play good guys and wise guys in The Untouchables tradition, even if that in itself can't quite lift the film to the higher echelons of gangster movies past and present.

There's absolutely nothing new here, it plays out as expected. Brolin and Gosling are the main smooth operators in the good guys camp, the former given the family man in danger sub-plot, the latter given the dangerous dame to fall in love with in the shapely form of Emma Stone, who as it happens is also dating Cohen! Hmm...

Over in the wise guys department is Penn on full tilt sweary and hammy overdrive. It's a very colourful portrayal, menacing and completely over the top. How the performance sits with you will greatly depend on how you find Penn as an actor when let loose on a cartoon characterisation.

It's all very period pleasing, with a bustling late 40s L.A. hosting men with hats, trench coats and tommy-guns. Men who frequent the speakeasy bars as torch singers warble their stuff. There is nothing wrong with the production at all, except maybe when the dialogue veers to clunky. The action scenes are well crafted, loud, bloody and exciting, and the photography sparkles and the music soars.

If only the makers had put some thought into it, a bit of brains to go with the brawn. As a comic book type gangster piece, it works well on entertainment terms, elsewhere its lightweight and formula compliant, with the Ribisi, Patrick and Pena characters telegraphed a mile away. So, quite some way away from the great The Untouchables then, but better than Mullholland Falls. Make of that what you will. 6.5/10

Glossy, slick, bloody, violent, dumb, crowd-pleasing, and undeniably entertaining. Filled with every gangster genre cliché rolled into one, GANGSTER SQUAD ain't high art, nor is it aiming to be. It seemed as if director Fleischer was trying to tell this story in the most fun possible way, and he succeeds with flying colors. The film is at its best when its loud and dumb but falters when it tries to be anything more than that.

The cast seems like they're having fun, especially Sean Penn who has a field day with his role as the villain Mickey Cohen. The lines he's given are pure gold. Josh Brolin does a great job as the lead and Ryan Gosling is charming and charismatic as usual. However, Emma Stone is underused with a thankless role, but it's nice that she's in the film anyway. Overall, GANGSTER SQUAD is fun entertainment. No judgments, little pretense.

Brilliantly and stylishly recreated story set in Los Angeles, 1949: A secret crew of police officers led by a determined sergeant (Josh Brolin) pull off a hard fight against a local mobster . As sergeant John O'Mara happily married to pregnant Connie O'Mara (Mireille Enos , though Amy Adams and Kate Winslet were considered to play her) is assigned by Chief W.H. Parker (Nick Nolte, who portrays , previously played the leader of the gangster squad in Mulholland Falls) to enlist a brave group (Jamie Foxx and Bryan Cranston were considered for the roles but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with their other movies) . As they work together in an effort to take down the ruthless mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) who runs the city . O'Mara chooses 4 officers (Robert Patrick , Anthony McKee , Giovanni Rivisi , Michael Peña) and asks another cop and vet, Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling , though Adam Brody, Joel Edgerton, Luke Evans and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were on the short list for the part) to join him but he is not interested , but when he witnesses a killing , he joins them . Then , Wooters falls in love for Mickey Cohen's girlfriend called Grace Faraday (Emma Stone , though Teresa Palmer, Camilla Belle, Aly Michalka, Lily Collins, Emmy Rossum, Amanda Seyfried and Maggie Grace auditioned for this character)

This is a violence-ridden story full of action, drama , thriller and being pretty entertaining . Intelligent and suspenseful script in ¨The Untouchables¨ style , being written by Will Beall based on the book "Gangster Squad" from Paul Lieberman . Spectacular as well as explosive shoot'em up on the streets , mansion , station and Chinatown . Josh Brolin is excellent as impulsive and obstinate enforcer fighting against the underworld crime . Robert Patrick plays to perfection a veteran, incorruptible police who takes under his experience and protection to Michael Peña . And Sean Penn overacting in a heinous role as the nasty Mickey Cohen , Penn went through 3 hours of makeup each morning . Flamboyant and rich photography by Dion Beebe . Thrilling as well as atmospheric musical score by Steve Jablonsky . The motion picture was beautifully directed by Ruben Fleischer . This superb recounting will appeal immensely to Josh Brolin , Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone fans.

The flick was partially based on real events : In the movie, the Gangster Squad is assembled to go after Mickey Cohen. However, in real life Chief W.H. Parker set up the squad to prevent other gangsters from taking over Cohen's rackets after Cohen went to prison on income tax evasion. Whenever the squad learned that out-of-town gangsters were coming to Los Angeles to try to set up new operations, the Gangster Squad would kidnap them, beat them up and then send them back to wherever they came from with the warning that if they ever returned, they would be killed . Other films dealing with this famous gangster Mickey Cohen are the followings : Bugsy (1991) played by Harvey Keitel , Fallen Angels (1993) played by James Woods , The Rat Pack (1998) (TV) played by Alan Woolf , L.A. Confidential (1997) played by Paul Guilfoyle , and recent TV series Mob City (2013) played by Jeremy Luke , including similar characters to 'The gangster squad' being starred by Jon Bernthal , Milo Ventimiglia, Neal McDonough , Alexa Davalos , Jeffrey DeMunn and Robert Knepper.

Originally intended for release in September of 2012, Gangster Squad has belatedly hit theatres this week. The film follows the story of LA crime boss Mickey Cohen and a group of off-the-book beat cops to bring him down. "Based" on a true story (What movie isn't these days?) the film and its fantastic cast promise much but come across as bland and boring.

Set in Los Angeles in the 50's, Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) is a crime lord who has taken over and there seems to be nobody who can stop him. The few good cops are outnumbered by the cops Cohen has bought and it seems all hope is lost. But Police Chief Nick Nolte decides something needs to be done and assigns good, hard cop Josh Brolin to put together a team to go after Cohen. What follows is the assembling of a team of not-so- perfect cops and the war they wage on Cohen's empire.

Sound familiar? That's because we've all already seen this movie, only done much better. You can tick the cliché's off as you watch. Good cop being grilled by his dirty cop superior? Check. Older tougher cop and his young protégé? Check. Evil henchman of the chief bad guy? Check. The list could go on but would approach spoiler territory. The climax of the film is somewhat predictable about half way through. You can foresee almost all of the events that will play out in the last 20 minutes and while it's enjoyable enough, it's nothing you haven't seen before.

The cast is a who's who list of names. Which makes the film all the more disappointing. With names like Brolin, Gosling, Penn and Stone they should blow you away. But the characters are nothing more than caricatures and nobody gets the chance to portray any real depth, with the possible exception of Giovanni Ribsi. Sean Penn looks bizarre in a mountain of makeup, although it matches his completely over the top performance. Ryan Gosling turns in a nicely subtle performance, but most of the rest of the cast are stuck in cardboard cut out roles with individual stories set on railway tracks. We all know where they're going to go, we just have to wait for them to get there.

Also worth mentioning in the reason for the delay in the film's release. Originally the film was to be released in September 2012, but then the Aurora shooting took place. At that time one of the key set pieces of the film was a scene in which the characters shoot at people from behind a movie screen in a theatre. Realising how disastrously that would be received in the wake of Aurora, the studio immediately suspended promotion for the film and set about reworking that scene. The cast re- assembled in August to reshoot the sequence, now taking place in Chinatown.

Something I liked: Robert Patrick's performance as the grizzled older gunslinger. As a Terminator 2 fan it was great to see him still taking out people almost at will.

Something I didn't like: The predictable climax. At the 60 minute mark I mentally made a list of things I thought would happen in the last 20 or so minutes of the film. Of my list of about 6 things, 5 of them happened exactly as I predicted.

Something that bugged me: The scenes with Josh Brolin and Nick Nolte seemed to be shot out of focus. It was particularly noticeable in the shots of Nolte. For a film with a budget of $75M, this just shouldn't happen.

Summary: Ultimately Gangster Squad is an enjoyable enough 100 minutes but isn't anything significant. There's no great performances, no spectacular set pieces nor any big moments that you'll go home talking about. For the ladies there's an ample amount of eye candy in the form of a suited and fedora-d Ryan Gosling, and for the gentlemen there's Emma Stone and a no-nonsense Robert Patrick. But the story fails to ever really leap off the page and become something. We're told Mickey Cohen is bad, but he's never anything more than "that bad guy". We don't hate him, we don't sympathise with him or desperately want him to be taken down. He's just "the bad guy". The same can be said for all of the characters, and the story as a whole. Which makes it on the whole, ultimately forgettable.

The year is 1949 and Los Angeles is being run by mob king Mickey Cohen. Now, a secret team of detectives and cops form together to bring him down and bring peace back to the streets.

Gangster Squad was a nice romp back to the days where detectives said funny lines, smoked indoors and held tommy guns. Here is a film that looks slick with a nice polish, a great ensemble cast and a story that has enough meat to it for us to chew on. Yet, people seem to be hating on it. Did they all expect another Untouchables? Sure, Gangster Squad has moments where the inspirations from past films peep through, but not once did this film try to be more than the sum of its means. Gangster Squad is a fun film, has thrilling moments and will entertain you.

Josh Brolin plays Sgt. John O'Mara, a tough as nails cop who is willing to put his life on the line for truth and justice. This annoys his very pregnant wife, who seems ready to pop at any moment. She takes it upon herself to help form the team he needs in order to protect him. The team involves: Anthony Mackie, an officer who is deadly with a knife, Giovanni Ribisi, a smart wire tapper, Robert Patrick, an ace with a pistol and his protégé Michael Peña whose eager to learn. The last addition to the team is the young, hot and dangerous Ryan Gosling, who seems to have found himself entangled with the mob king, Cohen's gal, played by Emma Stone.

There are obvious moments in the film where it tips its hat to predecessors like L.A. Confidential and the more obvious, The Untouchables. There is even a sequences involving a stairwell, although not as tense and more by the numbers shoot em up, the sequence is still one of the exciting pieces in the film. Both those films are more intricate with plot, characters and structure, by a mile. Gangster Squad doesn't focus on stuff like that, it wants to thrill you. Which is why some sequences in which we are suppose to care whether our characters live or die don't really pan out.

It has a graphic novel feel to it, very film noir and for those who've played L.A. Noir, will get the same sense of style. While the film looks great in a lot of sequences, that same style has some short comings, mainly the use of CGI as movement for the camera. It's the most noticeable, at least for me, in two scenes. With Josh Brolin in an elevator early on fighting two crooked guys and the second is when Ryan Gosling decides to pull his gun out in the middle of a club. The second scene in question is in slow motion and focuses mainly on his face, but the jarring background movement opposed to the steadiness of his face is just that, jarring and it takes you out of the film and makes you realize you are watching a film.

Everyone plays their roles respectively well, even if the team seems one dimensional. Sean Penn hams it up in a role that demands him to overact. The make up may distract some, but it added to the character for me. He was the one who seemed to have the most fun with his role. A lot of people scream style over substance and this may be true in some cases. I for one never went into the film expecting writing of another calibre and thus I found myself enjoying it a tad more.

There are some laughable scenes due to how cliché they are. One involves a character throwing their badge away into the water and another has the classic, character yelling another character's name as they walk away, when that person stops and turns, no one says a word. Moments like these that are played out in numerous films make me yawn and roll my eyes.

So go into Gangster Squad with an open mind, don't expect greatness, just a fun ride.