Gangster Squad (2013)

Initially intended to be released in September 2012, the high-gloss crime-action-movie "Gangster Squad" directed Ruben Fleischer and ensemble cast, led by ultra-evil looking actor Sean Penn as legendary mobster Mickey Cohen and solid-counterstriking actor Josh Brolin as Sgt. John O'Mara, enriched by an emerging love-story between actress Emma Stone as Grace Faraday and Ryan Gosling as Sgt. Jerry Wooters before its fulminate fulfillment in "La La Land" (2016) years later.A movie, which revives Film-Noir classics as "White Heat" (1949) starring James Cagney and more recent homages as "L.A. Confidential" (1997) directed by Curtis Hanson (1945-2016), without reaching the processors narrative qualities by falling into traps of making it a graphic novel adaptation looking thrill-ride of 105 Minutes (excluding end credits) to ensure participation of comic-book-movie spoiled international audiences, which did not fall for the obvious-manipulative nature of the picture, resulting in a U.S. domestic box office failure with just 46 Million Dollar in revenue by 60 Million Dollar production expenses.Furthermore and unfortunate due to a real-life U.S. movie theater shooting / massacre in a preview of "The Dark Knight Rises" in July 2012, the original cut of the film had been condemned by Warner Bros. executives ethical decision to drop an entire scene of "Gangster Squad", where a team of Mickey Cohen's associates assaults an inhabited movie showing by breaking through auditorium's canvas with open machine gun fire. Reshoots took place by the end of August 2012 to fill-in into the resulting gaps in the otherwise completed editorial.The months after; towards the newly-scheduled U.S. release date on January 11th 2013, Director Ruben Fleischer, still fighting for a directorial signature of his own, the producers Bruce Berman as long-term executive at Village Roadshow Picture and Kevin McCormick as well as further Warner Bros. executives did the best they could to fix the picture around the lost sequence, which resulted into a fast-paced scene-to-scene continuity-neglecting editorial under supervision of highly experienced editors Alan Baumgarten and James Herbert, utilizing razor-sharp cinematography by Dion Beebe and state of the art digital enhancements with further strong emphasize on color corrections making "Gangster Squad" visual splendor to watch, even though the concluding confrontation of the characters Mickey Cohen and John O'Mara came out bloody and realism-seeking, yet the final choreography of the fist fight seems under-developed, missing a finish upper-cut punch with visual extravaganza of the opening phantom-camera high speed capturing of actor Sean Penn boxing / working a sandbag, leaving the picture in a state of over-sugared happy endings of short-lived entertainment.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Why there are people that hate this movie will always remain a mystery to me. I'm not going to say it's the best gangster movie ever, far from that, but it still is an enjoyable movie to watch. If you don't like violent scenes than I get it that Gangster Squad is not for you, because there is a lot of violence in it. But apart from that there is absolutely nothing that could justify hate towards this movie. The cast is excellent, with good performances from almost every actor. It might not be Sean Penn's best performance but it isn't bad either. The story is very easy to follow and you never get bored. The special police force that uses mob tactics to bring down that same mob is a good story, maybe not new, but who cares? If you don't like Mafia movies than I suggest you don't watch Gangster Squad because that is basically what you are going to get.

A few days ago I have seen the brand new 'Black Mass' which is also a mob story made in Hollywood and enjoying the participation of a fine cast. I was not enthusiastic. 'Gangster Squad' directed by Ruben Fleischer has the few ingredients that I was missing in that film, which make the genre 'mob story inspired by real characters' much more enjoyable to me. It does start with 'inspired by a true story' (or 'true characters'), inserts the inevitable 'true crime' photos, and ends with the even more unavoidable text and pictures about the years spent in jail by the surviving bad guys, and the years happily spent fighting crime and raising kids by the good guys (those who survived, of course). In the middle it does better.The story of 'Gangster Squad' is set in the post-war LA, and this certainly helps as the place and the period seems to gather interests because of the classical 'noire' thrillers that it inspired followed by a number of successful movies (starting with The Maltese Falcon, of course, set and filmed in 1941). The despicable bad guy's name is Micky Cohen and his overtaking of the city could not (at least according to the script) be fought but by unconventional vigilante methods, because most of the police and judicial system was corrupted by hum. Find the right cops, motivated enough by having fought and survived WWII in order to build a world worth being lived by their kids, add the necessary dose of romantic, get a stunt master and a good choreographer for the fights and chases, and success is almost ensured.The story may be more remote from the truth than in 'Black Mass', the capabilities of the squad in fights and shooting may seem overrated, but at the end of the day the result was more enjoyable for me. It certainly helped to have on board such a fine team of actors, including Sean Penn as the ultimate bad guy, 'can't do wrong' Ryan Gosling, and beautiful Emma Stone who always seems to create around her a fascinating touch of mystery very appropriate in this movie. 'Gangster Squad' is a mob story that works and succeeds to be an entertaining film.

Gangster Squad was one of the biggest let downs I've experienced at the movie theaters. With the names: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Michael Peña, and Giovanni Ribisi attached to this project I assumed that this film would be a huge hit. But do you know the saying about assumptions? The film is based on the story of Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), an east coast gangster who brought organized crime out west to LA, and John O'Mara (Josh Brolin), a cop hired to assemble a team to take down Cohen by any means possible. This included using violence without punishment from the law. This premise bodes well for a good gangster flick but doesn't deliver on any front.The acting was fairly bad, the plot was unoriginal, the dialogue poor, and the directing terrible. There were only a few scenes in the film that I actually enjoyed, but most of the time I was either cringing in my seat or stifling a laugh. Gangster Squad had its release pushed back because of the movie theater shootings at the Dark Knight Rises. They had to do extensive re-shoots because a scene in the movie depicted gunmen coming out blazing from behind a theater screen shooting into the crowd. Rumors stated that removing this scene was like pulling a thread from a sweater. But regardless of what the movie could of been it ultimately was a flop.