Prime Time: Gangster Squad (2013)

When one or two good cops are fed up of gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) basically turning Los Angeles into his own personal playground it soon becomes clear that the best way to beat him is to act outside the law. And the Gangster Squad is created, a group of tough cops who operate without a badge while setting about systematically destroying the operations that keep Cohen in wealth and power.

Based on a non-fiction book by Paul Lieberman (which isn’t to say this is an accurate retelling of anything that comes close to the truth), Gangster Squad is very much style over substance, with the script from Will Beall happy to fit in as many tropes and recycled classic noir movie moments as possible. That doesn’t mean it’s unenjoyable. It’s just an inferior copy of numerous outright classics (including one or two modern classics, with The Untouchables casting as big a shadow over this as the classic WB gangster movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s. 

Director Ruben Fleischer can do fun films. I like one of his films more than the rest of his filmography (the one that involves zombies and a man on the hunt for Twinkies), but I have enjoyed most of his directorial efforts so far, to varying degrees. Even the mis-cast Uncharted. I didn’t enjoy this film though, and it feels as if Fleischer couldn’t get a handle on the material, but was hoping a few cool moments stitched together would help distract people from it being such a messy dollop of weak sauce. He has done well with casting, and managed to do equally well with the team of people working behind the camera to bring the Los Angeles of this time period to life, but there’s no feeling of a steady hand at the wheel.

Josh Brolin ends up as the head of the titular squad, and he gives another strong and gruff performance that matches a lot of his other work. If you need someone in authority to roll up their sleeves and do some dirty work then Brolin is your man, and he also looks damn sharp in the 1940s style. Alongside him are characters played by Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi, and Ryan Gosling. All of them do pretty decent work, with the exception of Gosling, who has decided to give his character a slightly higher-pitched way of speaking that doesn’t work. I can guess why he decided to give it a try, but someone should have stopped him. Emma Stone is dazzling as a woman caught up in Cohen’s world, Nick Nolte has a couple of great scenes as he assembles, and checks in on, the squad (off the record), and Penn gets to play his bad guy like he’s just walked off the pages of a Dick Tracy comic strip. Holt McCallany adds another henchman role to his long list of henchman roles, something he excels at, and the rest of the cast is stacked with familiar faces you will recognise, although may not be able to name.

If Fleischer wanted to make something violent and gripping then he failed. If he wanted to make something that felt like an important portrayal of a true story then he failed there too (none of this rings true, sadly, even if it is based on some real events). There are times when it almost gets the right balance, an attempted jailbreak being a highlight until the lights go out, but it’s mostly some pretty, but unengaging, visuals accompanied by a very nice score from Steve Jablonksy. There’s just about enough here to keep me moderately happy for the runtime, but I am VERY easily pleased.

4/10

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