Gangster Squad

To the Gangster Squad!

The creepy dad from Ted, Mikey's big brother from The Goonies, Noah from The Notebook, the crying soldier from The Hurt Locker, the locksmith from Crash, and the T-1000 from T2 - not your expected crime stoppers (Courtesy of Guardian).

When mobsters opened up a trunk and stabbed and shot the man inside, Goodfellas showed the best way to start off a solid gangster film was with an execution. Gangster Squad took it up a step when two cars drove off in different directions, tearing a man chained up in-between in half. Real-life 20th century mob boss Mickey Cohen (portrayed by Sean Penn, Mystic River) is ruthless and territorial on his L.A. turf, prompting Sergeant John O'Mara (Josh Brolin, No Country for Old Men) to plan the downfall of Cohen and his legacy. 

Recruiting a rather unconventional group of officers for the task, O'Mara rounds up his "gangster squad," and says the film's most overused line - "we're goin after Mickey Cohen." The squad breaks up his drug distributions, gambling locations and other operations in an attempt to bring Cohen down gradually. Along the way, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone fall in love (Again. See Crazy, Stupid, Love.) and Sean Penn gives a totally overdone performance. 

Gangster Squad is a slick, entertaining and well-edited crime film, and for this it gets my recommendation. It fills its seemingly lengthy 2-hour running time quite effectively and even has a little heart in some scenes. It's not loaded with scenes of thrill and suspense, but it's still tense at several points in the film. 

I do feel the need to call Gangster Squad out on a few of its flaws. For example, we fell in love with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love. as they fell in love with each other on screen. Here, their relationship seems to be a forced plot device that isn't even developed. In one scene, the cop played by Gosling hits on the girlfriend of Cohen, played by Stone. They wind up sleeping together, and after that, any mention of their relationship is temporarily abandoned. Later, when bugging Cohen's house, the two see each other and share a kiss. Even later, the two are shown having breakfast together in his house. So, what, are they living together? When did this happen? How did this happen? 

Sean Penn takes his usual acting style and blows it way out of proportion, giving a totally over-the-top performance. Yes, I understand this is the character of Mickey Cohen, but it was quite obvious Sean Penn was acting, and when you can tell someone is acting, they're not doing a very good job. There were also some ridiculous action scenes that were only included to add suspense, but only made me shake my head and say "oh, come on!" in a condescending fashion. 

I still wonder what the film would be like had the theater-shooting scene been left intact (read my full opinion piece on it here). Now having seen the movie, I don't think it would've made much of a difference, but I still feel like the original cut should have been left intact. Gangster Squad has its flaws, but is still enjoyable, sleek and mostly gripping.

Rating: 3.5/5