I went into this film with such high expectations and hopes for a truly awesome cut rate Gangster film, but unfortunately Gangster Squad represents a missed opportunity.
Director Ruben Fleischer and screenwriter Will Beall have discarded a great real-life story (uncovered by journalist Paul Lieberman in his book of the same name) and given us an overblown comic strip instead sometimes that is a good thing, but in this case the actual story is intriguing enough without having to add much conflict, which is exactly what they did.
The film starts out on a good note, with Josh Brolin as a straight-arrow veteran of World War II who is hired by Los Angeles Police Chief William H. Parker (Nick Nolte) to bring down ruthlessly ambitious gangster Mickey Cohen (ridiculously overplayed by Sean Penn). His mission is to gather a small, secretive team of specialists to do whatever it takes to put the mobster out of business—without the official sanction of the L.A.P.D. For Brolin this presents a considerable moral dilemma, having to break the law in order to serve a greater cause.
Alas, the movie is more interested in being a pulpy, bloody gangster film than a three-dimensional true-crime saga. It’s watchable because of the colorful recreation of L.A. in 1949 (thanks to cinematographer Dion Beebe and production designer Mather Ahmad) and its appealing cast, but it becomes unsatisfying as it grows more outlandish, right up to its bullet-riddled climax.
The film even asks us to believe that Brolin’s pal Ryan Gosling could have a fling with Cohen’s girlfriend (Emma Stone) without him knowing it, but anyone with eyes would be able to see it. Brolin’s square-jawed character is strictly two-dimensional (I suppose he hasn’t quite gotten Men in Black 3 out of his system yet), while his fellow undercover cops are ciphers, especially Anthony Mackie and Michael Pena, whose parts are sorely underwritten.
This film will be a real tossup with viewers, either you’ll love it or you’ll be completely let down. I suppose this comes under the heading of mindless entertainment. Which is a sad thing to say about it, because this film had such promise. Call me old fashioned, but I like to have a little more meat to my movies than shoot them until they’re dead plots. But that is the misstep of Hollywood nowadays. There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, except that in this case it squanders a really juicy true-
