MPAA Rating: R
Director: Ruben Fleischer
FilmPulse Score: 4/10
Gangster Squad is Ruben Fleischer’s third feature-length and involves a group of misfit police officers tasked with taking down ruthless mob boss Mickey Cohen who runs Los Angeles in the 40s and 50s. The film is inspired by true events of the real-life gangster Mickey Cohen, who is portrayed with an over-the-top performance by Sean Penn complete with numerous clichéd gangster sayings. Is this another Fleischer action-comedy? Is this a serious portrayal of a real-life chain of events? Is this a quasi-serious, tongue-in-cheek gangster film? I mean, Fleischer did direct Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less.
The film gets rolling with a bit of the ol’ ultra-violence, as a man is tied, by opposite ends, to two cars and eventually ripped in half in front of his business partner before his remains are eaten by coyotes. This is Mickey’s way of telling the gang back in Chicago that Mickey Cohen now owns and runs Los Angeles. On the other hand, Sgt. O’Mara (Josh Brolin) starts out his story with a cheesy voice-over narration using metaphors about badges and allegiances to describe the characters’ motivations just before he single-handedly brings down one of Cohen’s prostitute houses. These are problems 1 and 2. Problem 1 – The violence in Gangster Squad is ultra-violent and over-the-top which seems out-of-place, especially when it juxtaposed between the comedic touches and the scenes that try to tug at the viewer’s heartstrings. Problem 2 – Sean Penn and Josh Brolin are the only actors that think that they are in a serious film about gangsters; everyone else plays it tongue-in-cheek, but Penn seems to be going for awards. He portrays the ruthless Mickey Cohen with a fierce intensity that the real-life character deserves, but it feels forced, almost as if it was lifted from a drama and superimposed into this fun gangster comedy.
Chief Parker (Nick Nolte) is finally fed up with Cohen’s mob and decides to enlist Sgt. O’Mara to put together a unit tasked with waging war against Cohen. No Badges. No Mercy. Sgt. O’Mara seems like the perfect choice since he has training in guerrilla warfare which he never showcases, being that all of his plans to take down Cohen are simplistic and straight-forward. One of the film’s emotional elements comes in the form of O’Mara’s wife, Connie (Mireille Enos), who happens to be expecting their first child and just wants O’Mara to quit fighting and be a family man. Come next morning, though, Connie is at the dining table personally hand-picking members for The Gangster Squad whose members include Officer Harris (Anthony Mackie) – knife throwing extraordinaire, Officer Kennard (Robert Patrick) – the gun-slinging old-timer, and Officer Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) – the technology expert. Later, they are joined by Officer Ramirez (Michael Peña) – the ‘needy’ one (I guess), then Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), who has finally had enough after Cohen’s men kill a shoeshine boy that he was somewhat close to.
The film plays out exactly the way you think. You know exactly what is going to happen about 10 minutes into the film, which is fine as long as the ride is an entertaining one, but the film suffers too much from tonal issues, inconsistent performances and generally trying to be too many things all in the same film. Emotional scenes of family, love, and loss follow scenes full of graphic violence, while comedic touches are sprinkled throughout – all of which fail to deliver a substantial impact. Penn and Brolin seem to be in a serious gangster film, Pena and Mackie desperately just want to be in the film, Gosling could care less (his character is a drunk and quite possibly addicted to Ambien), Robert Patrick is in a different film all together, Enos and Stone are there for the emotional scenes that the film and its director could care less about and Ribisi’s character is so underdeveloped there’s barely a need for him at all beyond the fact that his family-man back-story is only further intended to pull (loosely) at the viewer’s heartstrings. Problems 3 through 11.
Problem 12 – The stylistic choices that Fleischer makes fall flat; they are tedious, overly used and simply boring and tiresome, including a long, drawn out gunfight between Cohen and O’Mara in hotel lobby shown in slow-motion with Christmas decorations as the centerpiece. There are ornaments shattering in slow-motion! Simply put – Some will find this film enjoyable and entertaining. I, however, found Gangster Squad to be a complete mess in every way, shape and form.
