Gangster Squad (2013)

Gangster Squad (R) - Review

"M-I-C..K-E-Y, Chews the Scenery!"

This stylized cop and robber flick loosely based on the crime spree of Mickey Cohen on 1940's Los Angeles arrives with a bang.  Slick and hep as its young stars, Gangster Squad is nonetheless overshadowed by the enigmatic performance of Sean Penn as Cohen who wishes to expand his empire beyond the mean streets of LA.  Penn is on dangerous ground here, growling and strutting his small frame with electrifying ferocity.  Cohen is out West, avoiding the old timey pitfalls of the Eastern establishment, and is purchasing off as many LA Police and Judges as will let him.  The daring Police Chief Parker forms an off the books hitsquad to stop Cohen and his cohorts, aka the Gangster Squad.  It's lead mainly by Josh Brolin (the cub scout) and Ryan Gosling (the ladies man), backed by a small group of incorruptible police officers with a rainbow of experience and skills (Robert Patrick plays a western-styled cowboy for instance).  The rag tag (and derivative) squad set out to halt Mickey's new gambling venture by any means (legal and illegal) possible.

Part The Untouchables and part LA Confidential (but using neithers strong points), Gangster Squad ups the ante with extremely stylized visuals and a penchant for letting Sean Penn carry the movie on his diminutive boxer's shoulders.  Held back from release and probably reedited following the Aurora theater shooting in Colorado, the heroes end up being rather inept and bloodless as they battle Mickey's lieutenants and rackets, culminating in a downtown shootout/fisticuffs between the perps and the kind-of-Law.  The money here was spent on design, set and costumes are fabulous and the camera is seeped in the experience.  Music echoes the era and tommygun fusillades fill the audio with pep and vitality but overall the toned down violence and lack of a definitive plot pull G Squads punches.  The heroes overall are bland and by the numbers (but with moments of interest) while the villains are a crackling neon sign to Vegas, they are having a lot more fun.  The film hits more than it misses and Penn's balls out burlesque is something to behold though in the end the films historical inaccuracies might condemn it to sleep with the fishes.

7 Chicago Typewriters out of 10 (GOOD)