Film Review: Gangster Squad

Director: Ruben Fleischer

A post-Second World War crime thriller based around the popular city of Los Angeles which is now nearly as renowned as New York for mafia gangs and crime syndicates. This is a film which tries to re-kindle the magic that was captured in L.A. Confidential (film review here) but falls short in many different areas except maybe in style.

Gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) is a ruthless gangster who is the most powerful crimelord in LA having travelled from the East to take over the crime in the city. Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) asks Sergeant John O'Mara (Josh Brolin), a family man except a child with his wife Connie (Mireille Enos), to set up a secret police unit to fight Cohen outside the letter of the law. The gang then try to dismantle Mickey's businesses in an effort to rid the city of him.

Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) and Sergeant John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) 

A slick and sharp looking thriller which is unfortunately not backed up by any sort of character development, creative plot writing or snappy dialogue. The characters are not people you care about at any point even though a couple of the police officers are shown to have families, that isn't enough for you to suddenly feel devastated if one of them were to die or be injured. The film has some nice comedic moments but other parts seem unintentionally laughable and that with a few changes could easily be taken as a spoof gangster movie which would be more Fleischer's territory.

The talent of the cast is critically under-used, Emma Stone is left to just looking pretty and spouting out lines that don't really make sense or add any value to the production. Whilst her romance with Gosling is lukewarm at best. Sean Penn should come in for the most criticism as he is poor as the crime figure Mickey Cohen, his accent is laughable and his demeanor more like somebody who is a drug addict which may be the case but was never actually shown.

1.5/4 lack of intrigue in the plot is backed up by some debatable performances