Directed by:
Ruben FleischerScreenplay:
Will BeallCinematography:
Dion BeebeComposer:
Steve JablonskyCast:
Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi, Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Mireille Enos, Michael Peña, Robert Patrick, Jon Polito (more)Plots(1)
The year is 1949 and ruthless gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) has the city of Los Angeles in his grip. Against a gang protected by rampant corruption, Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) resorts to extremes. He enlists battle-hardened hero Sgt John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) to form a unit to exact vigilante justice. Their job isn't to make arrests... it's to make war. As the city explodes in gunfire, jaded cop Sgt Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) is reluctantly drawn into the fight as he falls hard for Grace Faraday (Emma Stone), the elegant beauty whom Cohen claims as his own. Inspired by an incredible true story, Gangster Squad blows open the secret files of the cops who fought for L.A.'s soul. (Roadshow Entertainment)
(more)Reviews (14)
This modern approach is inappropriate. Moreover, Sean Penn completely overacted and Cohen became just a weird caricature. Thank God the casting of the team who are meant to lend him a hand is top-notch. Brolin is wonderfully obstinate, Gosling gives a standard performance and the Kurt-like Robert Patrick as the last gun-fighter in L.A. It lacks sophistication and intelligence, and modern slow-motion effects are sometimes impressive, but they begin to be bothersome after a while. A popcorn gangster movie cannot be filmed. Maybe it’s a also shame that the notorious scene in the movie theater disappeared.
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A simple action movie pretending to be a retro gangster film, where actors are illuminated like mannequins in a store.
One or two thrilling scenes, a brisk pace, one-dimensional characters, attractive camera filters and a horribly directed
Ryan Gosling. For him to fumble, the director’s skill must be truly abysmal. How could they have gotten such an acting
ensemble for this screenplay?! Right between two and three stars, and I’m giving two because it’s a defiling of Sergio Leone
and Brian De Palma.
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Shallow popcorn flick that lacks the soul, the atmosphere and that one memorable scene that have always made the gangster genre so attractive and rewarding to viewers. There are many moments, especially the last ten minutes, that were written following the manual "How to make an unwanted parody of a genre quickly and easily." The only thing that keeps it afloat is Josh Brolin’s manly charisma. On the whole, it's as routine and stupid as Zombieland, which I expected from Fleischer, so there's no question of disappointment. And please, don’t give me that “Inspired by a True Story” line.
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Six brave and incorruptible men against one serious candidate for plastic surgery and a stay in a psychiatric clinic. I wouldn’t have been bothered at all by Fleischer’s attempt to adapt this strange mix of gangster and noir motifs to the tastes of comic-book readers and gamers if the film wasn’t a failure on more basic levels: development of the characters, creation of dramatic tension, logic of action, consistency of atmosphere. The whole film consistently adheres to comic-book stylisation in the mould of Dick Tracy (from which Penn’s psychotic troll most likely escaped), and I won’t mention the ill-considered violence of numerous scenes, and the fascist methods of the “hunters” (who, unlike the protagonists of De Palma’s The Untouchables, obviously have no moral inhibitions) aren’t worthy of comment. However, the inclination toward heroic pathos is much more common than the deliberate parodying of the genre. Though they look good on the posters, they are also as flat as the posters as they pay the price for going from one extreme to the other. Neither the content nor the manner of storytelling offers anything that could draw us in or make us fear for the protagonists characters, or at least spark our interest in how the story will continue. As a brutally straightforward and straightforwardly brutal shoot ’em up (unfortunately with supremely unclear action scenes, including the fistfights), Gangster Squad can make for a pleasant evening, but it also leaves a bitter aftertaste. I consider the failure to make a better film with such an excellent cast, an Oscar-winning cinematographer and a highly capable soundtrack composer to be an act of Hollywood-style organised crime. 65%
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It’s shallow kitsch, without much in terms of wisdom from the screenwriter, but it’s still watchable, thanks mainly to the good cast, the nice visuals and the craftsmanship. Sean Penn’s main evil gangster, though, feels like self-parody; his attempts at looking insane and maniac were funny – but that also contributed to my experience as a viewer, which I would describe as satisfactory. It’s unlikely that I will watch Gangster Squad again (not alone, at least), but I didn’t feel any acute need to get as far away from the screen as possible.
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An even bigger mistake than expecting Gangster Squad to be the new L.A. Confidential is to watch L.A. Confidential two days beforehand. I don't mind the lemonade game of gangsters, which mainly treads on a 'sunny' note because the actors fit the period suits exactly, cigarettes are smoked countless times, and there are plenty of excuses to get the Thompsons to bark. I can accept all that until Fleischer says he'd like to be the new DePalma and switches from funny conversational humor to serious mode, where he fails utterly. In fact, all the action scenes seem to have been shoehorned into the film as an afterthought, only one of the two female characters is anchored in the plot, and the police unit is carried by Brolin's charisma and Gosling's smile. To top it all off, it features a collection of annoying Hollywood clichés. A well-deserved fail.
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If you're expecting a classic gangster movie, keep waiting. If, however, you can put up with a blunt and straightforward popcorn movie with all the trimmings, where instead of CGI robots with lasers, there are tough guys in trench coats with machine guns, you don't have to wait any longer.
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An unpleasantly loud burst bubble, drowning one of the most promising acting ensembles of the season. Here there may be enough style for two movies, but barely enough momentum for ten minutes. Will Beall's script puts clichéd lines in the mouths of its characters, which even names like Ryan Gosling or Josh Brolin struggle to deliver while maintaining any credibility. Should it be relegated to a story of antiheroes on a quest for justice? Perhaps. But I don't mind at all that Gangster Squad is ultimately the most worn-out trash, because that's exactly what attracted me to it. What bothers me is that it is nothing else, and in key plot twists it just rehashes bits and pieces from The Untouchables, Carlito's Way, and Public Enemies.
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A routine affair, but definitely not a complete disaster. It's surprising that a lot of otherwise excellent and very inventive creators and actors are behind this very average film. I enjoyed the raw fights and the decent gunfights, the ultra-cool Penn and the likeable Brolin, though he is much better on the opposite side of the law, like in American Gangster. It's not nearly as intricate, skillfully written, and technically precise as, for example, Ridley Scott’s film, but it's worth seeing once. Purely average.
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A brisk genre affair with perfect action scenes, a likable cast and a pleasantly popcorn atmosphere, and which includes both suspense and humor. At first I was worried that Gangster Squad would steal too much from The Untouchables, but as time went on I stopped thinking about it altogether and just had fun. And why not?__P.S. Jablonsky's music (I liked it this time) sounds a bit like Zimmer's “Sherlock Holmes", and "Gangster Squad" quotes Morricone's “The Untouchables" in the final track. That is not a bad thing.
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After the first negative reactions, I was expecting some kind of dud, but it’s actually made very differently than I thought. No Scorsese and his typical precision, no De Palma and the great psychology of the characters, it’s only genre fan Ruben Fleischer who drew a Thompson on a paper instead of writing a script, shoved it into the hands of a bunch of top-notch actors, and let them go at it for nearly two hours in a style rivalled only by the recent Expendables 2. And all this against the backdrop of a very authentic retro atmosphere and Jablonsky's catchy soundtrack, which gives the action scenes more pizzazz. There’s one cliché after another, all the actors, except for the extremely scene-chewing Penn, get by with two expressions, and Emma Stone is just eye-candy that we could have done without this time. But, and this is quite important from my point of view in a product of film ENTERTAINMENT, you don't get bored for a moment. Admittedly, it’s a kind of guiltier entertainment, where we're well aware that we're witnessing an over-the-top, over-stylized and overly stupid Hollywood affair, but its negative impact on my humble viewing intelligence was ultimately not as overwhelming as I had feared. 65%
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Name a cliché and oh my gosh you'll find it here. An incredible calculation to target an audience with the notion that conventions shape the genre and it's forbidden to rail against them. But also a subject for the formal study of how a video game movie differs from a comic book movie. They have tons in common (the elimination of close-ups and informative shots, the distinctive typology of the characters, especially in terms of their appearance), but they diverge once you start getting dynamic with the camera, because a comic book is static and thus relies on editing to capture action scenes, whereas a video game follows a character, or anarchically passes around the action as if there wasn't shooting going on, calmly making its way through solid obstacles because there is no apparatus, only the image. The narrative is also like a video game, where in fact we have a diverse collection of missions, including the last one, at the end of which you have to beat the boss. Not to mention the ending, where you flank the enemy during a firefight, your enemies spawn regularly when you cross a certain point, and you autoheal under cover. But I can't help it, it was so nice at the end with the shooting and the blood spurting out of people and… and… and I was on a high right at the beginning as Brolin beat the crap out of the whorehouse. It’s just been a while since I’ve seen a decent action movie that somebody tossed a decent amount of cash into (which, after the small box office takings of this one, will once again be a long time coming). Otherwise, though, this is purely a film adaptation of Mafia II. Except that the other one had a much better script. PS: Emma Stone is a broom and Gosling's accent is awesome.
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"Gangster Squad - Mafia Hunters" is a movie that managed to captivate me even with its poster. Interesting actors in a mafia setting could potentially follow in the footsteps of the film "Lawless" and perhaps even improve the reputation of gangster movies, which have been less successful recently, unless they are from a British origin. Movies focused on the American mafia usually end up controversial and fairly average. In the end, even the film "Gangster Squad - Mafia Hunters" couldn't avoid being average. There are flaws that simply cannot be overlooked. The first problem is the antagonist. Sean Penn is a good actor, but what he did in this case is truly unsuccessful. His antagonist is so negative, portrayed too harshly and rough, that it is simply unbelievable. He is exactly the kind of person that you will hate, because he has no good qualities, he is even boring in a schematic way, and Sean Penn has turned him into a caricature. I don't know if it was the intention of the creators, but if it was, they underestimated it. While Sean Penn is villainous, Josh Brolin is righteous. Sure, he chooses methods that are not in accordance with the law from time to time, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care about justice. He wants to save his beloved city. Giovanni Ribisi - this guy never disappoints even within the script - delivers one crucial line: What is the difference between us and the gangsters? A fundamental sentence that is not addressed here at all, it's only inserted in the dialogues to make it seem like the film emphasizes something more than just the battle between good and evil, that there is something in between. According to this film, there isn't, because in the end, it is Ribisi, the only one among the group of policemen/mafia hunters, who has a family and who is not the main character. Of course, he has to die to show that evil is truly evil and that good must fight for itself with all available means. The biggest problem then lies in the dialogs and monologues. Josh Brolin delivers incredibly disjointed and pointless speeches about morality, but that's not his fault, in this case it's simply the screenplay's doing. Ryan Gosling occasionally nods along, and he is the biggest asset of the film because his character is probably the most interesting. Nevertheless, the film focuses more on Josh Brolin and his policeman, who must overcome hurdles to achieve happiness. Partially, it is a western, with honorable guys and those who are rotten, but partially, it is also a fairy tale from classical Hollywood production. I would criticize two things about the film. Firstly, it unnecessarily uses humor. It diminishes the overall impression and does more harm than good. A drama without humor would have had a better impact. The film tries to appear very tough from the beginning. Secondly, how on earth did everyone manage to shoot so much? According to the number of bullets fired and the distance, half of Los Angeles would have been wiped out. In that sense, the film is unbelievable and is only playing for effect. If it had avoided all of these things, it would have been more than just a slightly above-average gangster film that doesn't bring anything new to the genre. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2013/02/now-is-good-stand-up-guys-bourne-30.html
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Awesome cast, nothing to say against them (with one exception). It was the first time this has ever happened, but I disliked Sean Penn terribly. I'll admit that I know absolutely nothing about the real Mickey Cohen (maybe he was exactly the kind of childish idiot without any charm as portrayed in this film), but I still found Penn's lines terribly unnatural and overacted at times. Some would certainly counter that this may have been the intention, but I'd rather not elaborate on that (Sean Penn is thus surprisingly probably the weakest link in the film). The story as such is remarkably linear and brisk; it's probably more of an action film than a mafia piece in the true sense of the word. It's shot exactly to appeal to mainstream audiences – coolly dressed actors in beautiful costumes, plenty of the expected brutality, and a nice retro vibe. An average film that hopefully won't offend anyone, but at the same time hardly takes your breath away.
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