Film Review - Gangster Squad (2013)

Gangster Squad stars Josh Brolin as Sgt. John O'Mara of the LAPD in 1949 Los Angeles, a city ruled by Gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) who wants to build an Empire with which to rule, but the police chief (Nick Nolte) wants O'Mara to take it down outside of the law but if you open the ball on these people you have to go all the way for they won't give up the fight until one of them is dead.

Gangster Squad is actually much better than I thought it would be and that is mainly due to Brolin, he gives a good performance in the film and you can see he is trying to do something with his character, in fact I was reminded of Dick Tracy in terms of the character described in the original comic strips in that he was a square jawed tough guy rather than the soft jaw character Warren Beatty played in his film of the comic.

But sadly the film is nowhere near as good as he is as the film around him is rather boring and also boringly shot as like Michael Mann's 2009 film Public Enemies, you have this strange situation where you have a very classical period of time that's shot with hi tech digital cameras that give off that digital look at times, I couldn't help but think that this should have been shot on film but given the current demonization of the use of film to shoot features at the moment, it's a shame that couldn't happen.

Another big problem with the film is that it gets very dull as it goes on, lacking the pop fizz fun of Dick Tracy which not only had a great period setting and exciting action but also had a great performance by Al Pacino.

Here Penn just mumbles his way through the film and frankly I don't think he gave a damn doing it, no doubt it was a chance to make a quick buck so he took it but the biggest waste of all is Emma Stone, a wonderful actress who is given a thankless role of looking good in the red sequin dress as you might have seen in the previews for the film and being slapped around by the male cast members, what a terrible waste.

So hey, Gangster Squad holds up because of that central cast but the film around them is ugly looking, dull to watch, has a weak villain and wastes its only actress, rent the Untouchables and Dick Tracy instead as those are much better films of this sort, 2 out of 5.