A Reel Review: GANGSTER SQUAD

GANGSTER SQUAD was originally set to be released in September of 2012 before being delayed in order to re-shoot footage and edit around a scene involving a movie theatre shooting. (Read More) The big question going into the film on its new release is if the last-minute edits would be noticeable and possibly derail the film. Fear not, movie-buffs. The new scenes don’t do anything to ruin GANGSTER SQUAD, because the film has much bigger problems than that. 

In 1949 Los Angeles, ruthless gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) is running the city. The Chief of Police (Nick Nolte) assigns hard-nosed cop Sgt. O’Mara (Josh Brolin) to form a squad to take down Cohen. The squad involves Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who falls into an affair with Cohen’s dame, Grace (Emma Stone). 

GANGSTER SQUAD is loaded up with every gangster cliché ever adapted. Everything from disfigured gangsters, whiskey flasks, tilted fedoras and dangling cigarettes are never off the screen. The film is very heavy on style. Normally that wouldn’t be a bad thing as the characters are fairly cool (and sexy) to look at, but director Ruben Fleischer relies on that style for everything. With so many familiar themes going on, the film falls into a generic, by-the-numbers story. The plot and characters become highly predictable, and GANGSTER SQUAD quickly becomes mundane. And for a film with so much reliance on look and style, there is very little zip or energy present. 

Fleischer doesn’t seem to know if he’s supposed to be making a parody or a serious drama, so he tries to do both and the confusion seems to trickle down to the characters. Everyone over-acts their parts to the point where the film feels like a STAR TREK episode in which the time-displaced crew has to dress up in costumes and act the parts out. 

The characters are very one-dimensional and never go any deeper than their wooden lines of dialogue. Attempts to wedge in a love story and a family life are made, but they come off as lame attempts because there just isn’t any heart to it. The character who suffers the most is the main villain. For as often as we see Cohen ruthlessly kill off rivals or his own men, we are never given a sense as to why it is so important that the city of L.A. be rid of him; how his actions or plans are affecting the city or the people is never explored. 

Acting is a mixed bag. Sean Penn chews up the scenery almost comically, and the heavy prosthetic makeup he has to wear completely buries his facial expressions. Ryan Gosling seems to just want to play Ryan Gosling, and Josh Brolin never gets to do anything but not smile the entire film. Nick Nolte must have been snockered when filming considering his grumble-garble, marbles-in-my-mouth performance, and the rest of the squad (Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena, Robert Patrick), while entertaining, don’t get to do much. Faring the best is Emma Stone, who doesn’t have to do a lot other than wink and charm her way right off the screen and she does that perfectly. 

Despite some decent action scenes, GANGSTER SQUAD just feels very un-inspired and lazy. No risks are taken and no attempts are made to get beyond how cool people look in fedoras. There is nothing here to get shot up about. 

BOTTOM LINE: Fuck it