Gangster Squad

Director: Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, 30 minutes or less)

Starring: Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Emma Stone

Gangster Squad is a typical 1950's, Los Angeles based mobster film. Mickey Cohen, a top mobster in LA and Chicago, is taking over Los Angeles one phone line at a time so he can take the title, “King of the City” (so lame). Set specifically in 1949, fresh stories and memories of the war are floating around, SGT. John O'Mara is a detective that can't seem to lift those memories(not surprising). The impression I got was, it was his sole purpose to take down anyone who had done any bad in the world(despite being told not to, many times). As the Cohen rises in taking away Los Angeles' “soul” from the LAPD, the chief inspector calls upon O'Mara to get together a secret crew of police officers to take down Mickey Cohen.

With help from O'Mara's pregnant wife (because she obviously knows exactly what traits a secret police crew need) John and his wife (mostly his wife) put together LA's dream team. Which include: a black cop who is amazing at throwing knives, an old guy on the front of what looks to be a comic book that my twelve year old brother could draw, a really brainy guy who also fought the war and of course the gorgeous, naïve SGT. Jerry Wooters. Somehow a Mexican guy joins the “Gangster Squad”(which they name themselves), despite his lack of police experience and he has never shot a gun before, he just “listened in” on one of their plans and decided that he may as well join now. Before I continue, can we just reflect? This film is set in the 1950's, if I'm not mistaken and I remember my year nine history correctly, black and whites were not aloud to mix, am I right? Certainly not a Mexican!

There's no character development in this film, I didn't even know Jerry Wooters was a sergeant until I got home and looked it up on IMBD, I also had no idea what he was fighting for, without giving anything away he seemed to change his mind about the “dream team” pretty promptly. Further on in the film, it seems like he changes his mind as to why he's fighting! I know there's only a certain amount of time in the film and explosions and big guns are obviously more important but it'd be nice to know some details.

Although the film is named 'Gangster Squad' it's shocking how little we know about them apart from O'Mara and Wooters; again poor character development. Dare I say this film is a complete rip off of Scarface, not the story, the “slow motion gun wounds”, the rolling of the shoulders, the proud pouting while shooting a machine gun; it left me in a sombre state of squalor. There's one more thing I need to say before I say what I actually enjoyed. I've never been a fan of Sean Penn, but in this film I particularly didn't enjoy his acting, he spent the whole film looking as though he was having a stroke, failing to make eye contact with anyone. Not even his “lover”, Grace Faraday. He also reminded me of a nodding dog, bulldog like features and all.

By now you're probably wondering, “what the heck did she LIKE about this film?”. Well here's to sum it up in one paragraph, the colour grading and editing were excellent, beautiful colours; very warm and raw, although they would be more appropriate in a RomCom, somehow it worked. I went in to the cinema with very low expectations, there were parts where those expectations were exceeded and parts where the film met those expectations, the film is very much like a sound wave (yep, I did just use that analogy). The acting from the rest of the cast (minus Sean Penn) was super, especially Ryan Gosling, who always delivers. Lastly, the ending was wrapped up nicely, showing what everyone went on to do; which I really liked.

My final verdict: wait until this film goes to £3 in HMV...oh wait. However, if you enjoy a film with little to no character development, big guns, explosions, over-the-top fifteen rated gore and an extremely cheesy script (my favourite line being “Hold on to your hats, boys”) only then would I recommend seeing it for the hefty price of £9.20 or more (the rip-off prices of Cineworld).