Gangster Squad Review
A well executed but ultimately lazy film.
I think one day I would like to be a movie producer (one of those producers who doesn’t really produce anything but gets to sit in on the meetings and gets a big screen credit) if only to see how the creative process actually works for film. In my mind I see this film starting with a cool concept taken from actual historic events, casting that would be any directors wet dream, high production values, and in the last three days before production they pay $50 each to a drunken creative writing student, a Minnesota housewife who watches soap operas all day, and a homeless meth head who used to work in a video store to write out the script.
It boggles my mind that a film with a $60,000,000 budget wouldn’t take 1 lousy million and hire the greatest, most creative writers in the history of of film to craft an amazing original story. Instead they seem to treat the writing as secondary to casting, filming, special effects, marketing, and catering so you end up with 113 minutes of formulaic, cliche pap. “We need a reason for Ryan Gosling to join up and hate the crime boss. How about some kid who shines his shoes gets killed in a drive by shooting? We also need a reason for the main character to risk almost certain death when he has a pregnant wife at home and no real reason to care. How about we give him no real reason at all?”
The movie looks nice and you will definitely be drawn in to the Sean Penn character, but the motivations are suspect at best, the action is kind of tepid, the good guy who is going to die couldn’t have been more obvious if they had shown sniper cross hairs on him in every scene, and every event is about as predictable as saying a burst septic tank is going to smell bad. I took the liberty of looking up the screenplay writer (I don’t actually hold the book author responsible. He is writing a book which has a different aesthetic) and with the exception of Castle (where it is not only OK but kind of expected that there be a certain amount of camp cliche) his biggest movie to date is…Gangster Squad. Again, $60,000,000 budget. Why not hire a proven writer?
By they way, he is working on movies that I completely expect to suck like the worlds biggest Hoover: Logans Run (want to see how Hollywood takes amazing movies and remakes them in to lame crap (oh, wait. We just had Red Dawn)?), Lethal Weapon 5 (milk a dead cow a go go), and Justice League (never let it be said that DC isn’t willing to jump on the “Missed the Boat” boat). However, due to the fact that I enjoy Castle I won’t name his name.
Anyway, the movie (some spoilers inc.). Sean Penn (Tree of Life, Colors, Milk) plays Mikey Cohen, a former prizefighter turned gangster who runs crime in LA. Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin-Goonies, No Country for Old Men, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Truffle shuffle image courtesy of the Movie T-Shirt category) is recruited by Police Chief Parker (Nick Nolte-Cape Fear, 48 Hours, the Thin Red Line) to gun down criminal elements in LA (Parkers motivation is also missing). O’Mara recruits Ryan Gosling (Crazy, Stupid Love (where he also had a romance with Emma Stone), Drive, Ides of March) as Sgt. Jerry Wooters, a sexy, well dressed, deadpan pretty boy who transmits few if any emotions at any time (in other words, every role Ryan Gosling has ever had). He hooks up with Grace Faraday (Emma Stone-the Help, the Amazing Spider Man, Zombieland), who just happens to be Mikey Cohen’s girlfriend (see what I mean about lazy?). His shoe shine kid gets killed in a drive by. He recruits a posse of red shirts including token black guy (Anthony Mackie-Hurt Locker, Real Steel, Million Dollar Baby), token Mexican guy (Michael Pena-Crash, End of Watch, Crash), and a couple of other guys including a dead man walking (Giovanni Ribisi-Saving Private Ryan, Avatar, Gone in Sixty Seconds).
They start taking down mob businesses (if you have ever seen the Untouchables you can probably fast forward about 40 minutes) until the inevitable trap/retribution. Stuff gets blown up, guys get shot, and the fate of the city of LA boils down to a completely unnecessary (from both the film’s perspective and the story) boxing match.
The stars. I can’t say it wasn’t well done or entertaining (there’s your quote for the back of the DvD box: “‘I can’t say it wasn’t well done or entertaining.’-the Nerd Blog”). Two stars. Sean Penn more or less made the movie happen. Two stars. The rest of the cast did well. One stars. Emma Stone is quite the heart breaker. One star. The period portions were dead on and cool (cars, clothes,etc). One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The story was about as formulaic and derivative as a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with half the pages ripped out. One black hole. The action was actually kind of silly to the detriment of the film. One black hole. The only character that had any motivation to do anything at all was Mikey Cohen. The rest of the gang looked and acted like guys who got caught up in the spirit of a riot and then later wonder what the hell they were thinking. One black hole. Any time a main character does something you know is stupid the movie takes a detour into the Valley of Suck, and O’Mara’s decision to duke it out with a professional boxer for no reason whatsoever was less a detour and more a drive off a cliff. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
A grand total of three stars. The cast is good and it is well executed, but this film is firmly in the land of the mediocre. Should you see it? Sure, why not? It will entertain you without any of that pesky thinking that so clutters up better written movies. Date movie? I suppose, as long as you can stand up to being compared to Ryan Gosling. Nothing in here will put her off. Bathroom break? There’s a 50’s style barbeque scene that could be pretty easily missed. It’s early, so if you need a break later on I’d say the scene where Cohen is looking for a bug in his house. Honestly, there isn’t a lot of this film that I would say is 100% necessary. You can pretty much extrapolate any scene you miss by just assuming they did the easiest, most cliche thing available.
Thanks for reading. Lots coming up this weekend, but unfortunately I have something I’m doing for pretty much all of the weekend. Believe it or not it’s even weirder and more nerdy than Warhammer. I’ll try to see something tonight. If you have comments about this film or my review feel free to post them here. Follow me on Twitter for the one Tweet a day I tend to do @nerdkungfu. Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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