Gangster Squad

                       

 

               “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster”.  Every time I see a movie about gangsters I think back to that famous like uttered by Ray Liotta in “Goodfellas”. That life looked so much fun, well minus the killing and the whole breaking of the law. Most gangster movies always glamorize the gangster’s point of view, but what about the cops that don’t follow all the rules?  The kind who could not be bought? Well, welcome to “Gangster Squad”, a movie about those afore mentioned cops and their quest to take down organized crime in Los Angeles.

     Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) is a bad guy. Mickey is from back east and he is determined to make Los Angeles his own. Not many people are standing in his way, so Mickey works on controlling everyone he needs to in order to make his plan work. Sgt. John O’ Mara (Josh Brolin) is an honest cop who only sees right and wrong. He doesn’t care who Mickey is, he just knows he commits crimes and that he should be stopped. When Chief Parker (Nick Nolte) decides to form a unit to take Cohen down, he chooses O’Mara to be its leader. O’Mara picks five guys who can help bring down Cohen the only way they can, without badges. Just like all gangster movies, there are plenty of law breaking and guys with Tommy guns. O’Mara’s gangster squad sets out to change the game and convince the mob that they are not welcomed in the city of Los Angeles.

     I don’t like to judge movies off of trailers too often, but the trailer for “Gangster Squad” was really good, so I guess the only way to go from there was down. I mean with a hot cast that includes Ryan Gosling, Michael Pena, Emma Stone, and Josh Brolin, what could go wrong? Well I will tell you what can go wrong. With all those stars it is a shame that none of them had a character worth playing. I can’t blame them though; I blame that on Will Beall, who would be the writer of this film.  I get the feeling that this story would have been better if it was a drama, and not a straight action film. The film was directed by Ruben Fleisher (Zombieland), who seems to have not paid too much attention to the editing of his film. I say that because you should not see the editing, and with this film you saw it too much. After you get past the lack of good characters and the bad editing, “Gangster Squad” is not that bad. It is pretty simple and has some good action scenes and plus everyone is good to look at, but hey it is Los Angeles. Most people will enjoy this movie, and while I didn't love it, I also didn't hate it, it’s more of an ‘okay’ time at the movies, and I can think of a whole lot of worse ways to spend your money.

Brian Taylor