From the very onset, "Gangster Squad" has very little in the way of ambition, except to be a modern-day revamping of the Classic Hollywood Era mobster movies of the 1930s and 40s. It's the sort of film James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart would have done for Warner Bros. several decades back. However, if you took this modern-day movie—packed full of fedoras, cigars, exotic dancers in night clubs, and Tommy gun shootouts—and showed it to the audiences of 1940, they would have probably only been dazzled by the fact that it was filmed in fluorescent colors and that when somebody gets shot in the movie, they bleed. Other than that, I have a feeling the gangster movie audiences of yesteryear would have seen right through the movie's thin storytelling, its hurried way of rushing through the narrative, and its lackluster way of pulling up the classic conventions of this genre. And regardless if they wouldn't have been fooled, I wasn't.
Now I have a deep affection for the gangster movies of Classic Hollywood. I personally prefer the old favorites with their deliberately exaggerated characters, smart-aleck dialogue, and familiar filmmaking styles. I also enjoy them better when they are not packed end-to-end with vulgar language, and by 'vulgar language,' I mean the universe where every person of every age in any city only knows one swear word, the one that begins with an F. There is swearing in this new picture, but it's much more restrained. So it understood its own goals. However, the problem with "Gangster Squad" is not that it was made too late in time, but that it takes the clichés and familiarities and does not enact them with a whole lot of development or style. The ingredients are all there; they're just not launching very effectively.
The screenplay by cinema newcomer Will Beall is constantly on the move, jumping from one scenario to the next, but not giving each individual moment a chance to shine. Take for instance, the old-fashioned love story between Ryan Gosling as a Los Angeles cop and Emma Stone as a mobster's favorite moll. Once again, classic plot element just not enacted effectively. Their chemistry consists of this: they see each other in a nightclub, Mr. Gosling tells her flat out that he wants to take her to bed, two scenes later they're underneath the sheets of some flophouse, and after that, they are utterly smitten. Again, all fine given the genre, but not given enough time to flesh itself out. In fact, the scene between the two of them as they lie in bed after sex, with each of them uttering smart-aleck dialogue, gets off so strong that it really becomes infuriating that we leave the scene just when it starts to get going.
The cast of "Gangster Squad" is packed with talent, and yet most of the performances still misfire. Good of an actor as he is, Mr. Gosling is too much of a 21st century actor for the hotshot, flirtatious cop-role and he is too open-eyed and baby-faced for us to really believe that he could last long at all in a crime-riddled city like this. There is also Giovanni Ribisi, who looks silly with his slicked-back hairdo and paper-thin mustache, and seems utterly bewildered by all the period detail around him. Even Sean Penn, playing none other than Mickey Cohen himself, is uncharacteristically out of his element. Mr. Penn's performance consists mostly of hammy outbursts and temper tantrums, both of which prompted some unwanted laughs from me. The key element to a great movie-gangster is to get the audience to be afraid of him and what he might do. And yet even though this guy presents himself as an experienced boxer-turned-killer and orders the deaths of several people (including one where a man is torn in half between two cars) I never felt particularly intimidated by him. There are three exceptional performances. One is Robert Patrick, playing the gunslinger cop. The second is Emma Stone, who is charming and sexy as usual, despite the underwritten role supplied to her and the random twist-of-faith she has to perform in the third act. And finally, there is Josh Brolin himself, who fits his tough-cop role to a tee. With his square jaw, smile-scare expression, and squinted stare, he really does seem to belong in those period clothes. And when he takes matters into his own hands, there is a feeling of unpredictability. This is the guy I would be intimidated by. I just wish his character's personal life was more like that of Philip Marlowe, not tied to the drippy subplot of a wife who's expecting.
There is one more person who understands what he's supposed to be doing, and that is the cinematographer, Oscar-winner Dion Beebe. The art direction is exceptionally strong, but Mr. Beebe is the one who makes it look so great with all those fluorescent streaks of light. So he is not to blame when the director, Ruben Fleischer, loses focus of how he should be handling everything. This is set in one of those movie-worlds in which the sound of a black-powder gunshot cannot be heard by anybody. Not in the same building, not even through an open window. Ironically enough, these gangsters and cops are less sensible and observant than their 1940 counterparts. At least their ears were open enough to respond when a shotgun blast rang out down the hall. And therein lies the fatal flaw of "Gangster Squad." It captures the look of the old mob movie formula, but not the feel. No matter how much it wants to. But I do have the admit, I was pretty flattered to finally see an action movie where the heroes rig a truck to explode and when it goes off, they actually turn around to make sure they're not about to be pummeled by a chunk of debris. They don't ignore it like a bunch of brain-dead fools.
Now I have a deep affection for the gangster movies of Classic Hollywood. I personally prefer the old favorites with their deliberately exaggerated characters, smart-aleck dialogue, and familiar filmmaking styles. I also enjoy them better when they are not packed end-to-end with vulgar language, and by 'vulgar language,' I mean the universe where every person of every age in any city only knows one swear word, the one that begins with an F. There is swearing in this new picture, but it's much more restrained. So it understood its own goals. However, the problem with "Gangster Squad" is not that it was made too late in time, but that it takes the clichés and familiarities and does not enact them with a whole lot of development or style. The ingredients are all there; they're just not launching very effectively.
The screenplay by cinema newcomer Will Beall is constantly on the move, jumping from one scenario to the next, but not giving each individual moment a chance to shine. Take for instance, the old-fashioned love story between Ryan Gosling as a Los Angeles cop and Emma Stone as a mobster's favorite moll. Once again, classic plot element just not enacted effectively. Their chemistry consists of this: they see each other in a nightclub, Mr. Gosling tells her flat out that he wants to take her to bed, two scenes later they're underneath the sheets of some flophouse, and after that, they are utterly smitten. Again, all fine given the genre, but not given enough time to flesh itself out. In fact, the scene between the two of them as they lie in bed after sex, with each of them uttering smart-aleck dialogue, gets off so strong that it really becomes infuriating that we leave the scene just when it starts to get going.
The cast of "Gangster Squad" is packed with talent, and yet most of the performances still misfire. Good of an actor as he is, Mr. Gosling is too much of a 21st century actor for the hotshot, flirtatious cop-role and he is too open-eyed and baby-faced for us to really believe that he could last long at all in a crime-riddled city like this. There is also Giovanni Ribisi, who looks silly with his slicked-back hairdo and paper-thin mustache, and seems utterly bewildered by all the period detail around him. Even Sean Penn, playing none other than Mickey Cohen himself, is uncharacteristically out of his element. Mr. Penn's performance consists mostly of hammy outbursts and temper tantrums, both of which prompted some unwanted laughs from me. The key element to a great movie-gangster is to get the audience to be afraid of him and what he might do. And yet even though this guy presents himself as an experienced boxer-turned-killer and orders the deaths of several people (including one where a man is torn in half between two cars) I never felt particularly intimidated by him. There are three exceptional performances. One is Robert Patrick, playing the gunslinger cop. The second is Emma Stone, who is charming and sexy as usual, despite the underwritten role supplied to her and the random twist-of-faith she has to perform in the third act. And finally, there is Josh Brolin himself, who fits his tough-cop role to a tee. With his square jaw, smile-scare expression, and squinted stare, he really does seem to belong in those period clothes. And when he takes matters into his own hands, there is a feeling of unpredictability. This is the guy I would be intimidated by. I just wish his character's personal life was more like that of Philip Marlowe, not tied to the drippy subplot of a wife who's expecting.
There is one more person who understands what he's supposed to be doing, and that is the cinematographer, Oscar-winner Dion Beebe. The art direction is exceptionally strong, but Mr. Beebe is the one who makes it look so great with all those fluorescent streaks of light. So he is not to blame when the director, Ruben Fleischer, loses focus of how he should be handling everything. This is set in one of those movie-worlds in which the sound of a black-powder gunshot cannot be heard by anybody. Not in the same building, not even through an open window. Ironically enough, these gangsters and cops are less sensible and observant than their 1940 counterparts. At least their ears were open enough to respond when a shotgun blast rang out down the hall. And therein lies the fatal flaw of "Gangster Squad." It captures the look of the old mob movie formula, but not the feel. No matter how much it wants to. But I do have the admit, I was pretty flattered to finally see an action movie where the heroes rig a truck to explode and when it goes off, they actually turn around to make sure they're not about to be pummeled by a chunk of debris. They don't ignore it like a bunch of brain-dead fools.