Gangster Squad

If Hollywood is going to continue to put out lazy efforts while trying to pawn them off as blockbusters to us, then I am going to start putting out lazy reviews and emailing them to Ebert in hopes of getting a job offer from him. I seriously thought about just making this review 2 sentences long and simply attaching an extensive amount of photos of beautiful actors at the bottom of it. That’s essentially what Warner Brothers did when they gave Ruben Fleischer a group of A-listers in the form of Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, and Josh Brolin to tell the story of the rise and fall of Mickey Cohen in 1949 Los Angeles. But before I continue, let’s be honest, the only reason why Stone was in this movie is because she’s friends with Gosling from that rom-com they made together, Crazy, Stupid, Love.  The good thing is, it’s not like she’s awful or anything so I wasn’t too bothered by this; plus this movie cant help but be good with all of the talent that they collected for it right? Well you know what happens when you give the visionary mind of MTV’s Rob and Big these wonderful tools to work with don’t you? About what you would expect; a barely watchable, somewhat entertaining, and completely unoriginal mess of a movie. 

This really shouldn’t be that surprising to us since Fleischer has already given us two somewhat forgettable movies in 30 Minutes or Less and Zombieland. With Land it was like he was trying to mimic Shawn of the Dead by providing you a cool comedy that was different from the norm  in that it also included gory action with hints of drama to give you something rare in a movie watching experience.  But if you were like me, you just felt like something was a bit off the entire time. Maybe it’s just the simple fact that he’s not that talented. 

The writing in this movie is chalk full of recycled lines from every gangster movie that has ever been made. I swear that whoever had to edit this movie made them take out the “I knew it was you Fredo!” scene. Sean Penn is an annoying human being who also happens to be a great actor and that is on full display every time he is on screen. He does an excellent job as Mickey but it’s obvious he’s overacting a bit. I don’t blame him really because it’s clear that Fleischer is attempting to set this nostalgic mood in the film with each actor’s cheesy delivery of their lines and the sometimes hazy cinematography he employs. We get it, things were different back then but don’t go so much out of your way to show this that you lose sight of telling the story. There were quite a few instances in the movie where it seems like he gets bored and just edits the heck out of a murder scene to where it completely loses it’s effect. He spends all of this time setting up Mickey as a bad ass and then when he has him kill someone, it ‘s a quick shot of scared man immediately followed by a shot of that same man magically on fire with no logical explanation of how it happened. Which is disappointing because the movie started out with such promise. You see a Chicago gangster literally get ripped in half by Mickey and his henchmen as he tries to send a message to the world that LA is his town. 

And that’s the basic plot really; Mickey is trying to take over the entire West Coast and the LAPD is trying desperately to hold on to what they think is paradise. So old man Nick Nolte forms this undercover brute squad to not only take out Cohen and his gang but to also destroy his entire crime ring so that no one can come after him and replace him. This squad is not held to the same rules and standards as normal cops and can do whatever is necessary to get the job done. 

It’s not a bad storyline, it’s just bad writing and directing that leads to this movie’s downfall. And you get a sense that the actors catch on to this as Ryan Gosling is clearly phoning in his performance. He really only tries acting in one scene and that’s after his friend is killed. After that I guess he figured that’s all this crappy movie deserves. Overall I rate this movie as really WEAK because it reminds me of the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy with Madonna and anything that does that deserves to be pissed on (literally). Even Jay Z’s song in the trailer couldn’t save this movie.