Review: The Gangster Squad (2013) is LA Confidential for kids.

The Gangster Squad

2013
110 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

I've long spoken of the irony of Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy being one of the most mature and adult comic book films ever released (essay).  Despite its PG rating and primarily colors-centric art direction, it's rather violent and genuinely sad, focused on adult characters who deal with very adult problems.  It is perhaps doubly ironic that Ruben Fleischer's The Gangster Squad (trailer), which feels at times like a loose remake of the 1990 Disney release, is so juvenile despite its grown-up cast and its very R-rated violence.  It is cheerfully pulpy but childishly so.  It turns the tale of a group of off-the-books LA cops waging war on gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, going 'full gangster') into a simplistic adventure seemingly aimed at eight-year old boys.  For much of its running time, it can't decide whether it wants to be a serious gangster drama or a kid-friendly action adventure (graphic violence be damned), before just giving up and becoming a glorified video game instead.  Despite all of that, it is not a boring picture, filled with enjoyably bad acting, laughably cliched and/or corny plot turns, and pretty much non-stop violence.  The Gangster Squad achieves a rarity in this hyper-aware age: It's genuinely so bad that it's (almost) good.

The Gangster Squad gets a second silly trailer along with some very Caucasian character posters.

This still looks like a bunch of kids playing dress-up and acting out juvenile cops-and-robbers fantasies.  Think Bugsy Malone remaking LA Confidential.  Maybe it's the weirdly 'let's appeal to the kids!' rap song on the soundtrack.  Maybe's it's Sean Penn acting as badly as he can.  Maybe it's the marketing department trying to sell the idea that we're supposed to *care* about the forbidden romance between Emma Stone (as "the girl", I hope merely as a favor to Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer) and Ryan Gosling.  But this frankly looks rather silly and, R-rating and apparent ultra-violence notwithstanding, like a stereo-typically CW-friendly remake of LA Confidential or Mulholland Falls (yes, I know the latter also starred Nick Nolte).  Anyway, also dropping over the last couple days are a bunch of posters.  The theatrical one-sheet is notible in that it resembles the cover of a low-budget straight-to-VHS gangster movie from the early 1990s.  Not *bad* so much as having a distinct 'B-movie' vibe.  The character posters are more disconcerting.  As you'll see after the jump, we've got nine actors getting billing and just five character posters.  Amusingly, the cast's lone African American castmember, Anthony Mackie, doesn't get his own poster, having to stand at the back of the proverbial bus behind box office dynamo Giovanni Ribisi.  What about Michael Pena?  Hispanics apparently don't get face time at all, as he, along with the very Caucasian Robert Patrick are completely MIA.  Stay classy Warner Bros, stay classy.

Scott Mendelson

The Gangster Squad gets an awful trailer, looks like L.A. Confidential performed by and for children.

You'll find few who enjoyed Zombieland more than I did.  I put it on my best-of-2009 list and called it perhaps the best zombie film ever made.  But Ruben Fleischer's third film (following the underwhelming but interesting 30 Minutes Or Less) looks frankly idiotic.  Sean Penn is overacting to the point of obnoxiousness.  Ryan Gosling is once again presented as God's gift to women.  Emma Stone is once again paraded around as a piece of ass.  And the film feels like a rehash of any number of 1940s LA crime pictures.  Anthony "I'd be a big star if I wasn't black" Mackie can't even get billing in the trailer, but his presence is appreciated amid the admittedly terrific cast (Josh Brolin, Nick Nolte, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Patrick, Michael Pena, etc).  Stone's apparent role as the forbidden fruit highlights a certain sausage fest mentality ('manly men doing manly business while hot women wait on call'), while Mireille Enos's seemingly token appearance highlights the 'TV is better for women than movies' cliche.  On television, Enos is the lead in AMC's The Killing.  In movies, she plays Josh Brolin's wife.  The use of contemporary hip-hop song (Jay-Z's "Oh My God") to sell a 1940s period crime drama reeks of demographic pandering while the trailer sells the film as a slightly more adult-skewing version of the 1991 flop Mobsters (L.A. Confidential for kids?).  I'm all in favor of all-star ensemble films and/or period crime dramas.  But putting aside the 'cool cast' factor, this frankly looks awfully silly.  As of now, Warner Bros. has not given The Gangster Squad a release date, so it's likely that the reception for this trailer will be used as a measuring stick of sorts.  Anyway, as always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson