Mendelson's Memos: Sean Penn

Showing posts with label Sean Penn. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

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

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Go big or go home. Why, in an era when mainstream films are stuck in limited release, the relative successes of The Debt and Our Idiot Brother matter.

Normally I would not spend a column championing a small $5 million comedy that is on track to gross over $30 million as anything other than a 'gee, I like when that happens'. And while there are many reasons to praise the $14 million six-day opening of The Debt, the most surprising thing about it is that Focus Features debuted the film wide enough to achieve that kind of opening in the first place. In a movie-going world where any number of seemingly mainstream pictures die in the art-house, peaking at 500 screens and unable to capitalize on mainstream buzz or word of mouth, kudos to the Weinstein Company and Focus Features for just opening these movies the old fashioned way. They may have sensibilities that differ from the most popular versions of their respective genre. Our Idiot Brother is (allegedly) a bit more painful and quirky than a Judd Apatow film, while The Debt is closer to John le Carré than Jason Bourne. But they are both damn-well mainstream entertainments, and both films will be quite profitable because their respective studios treated them as such.

2011 Summer Movie Review part I: The Moments That Mattered

We'll see if my schedule allows me to do a comprehensive 'end of summer' box office wrap-up, but since summer 2011 doesn't officially end until next weekend, I figure I've got time. For now, here is my annual rundown of the various scenes, performances, moments, and miscues that defined the summer just past. Because sometimes, discussing the 'parts' is more fun than discussing the 'whole'. I'll try to avoid divulging plot twists and the like, but consider this a SPOILER WARNING.

Best Fake-Out: Vin Deisel sacrifices himself for the team at the finale of Fast Five.
Even if you feel silly admitting that you cared about the characters in this fifth and inexplicably terrific entry in the eleven-year long racing action franchise, you cannot deny that the characters cared about each other. What made the movie pop was the genuine sense of camaraderie and bonding that existed between our main characters, which is one of the benefits of being the fifth film in a long running franchise. So when Deisel's Dominic Toretto separates himself from the pack during the final chase scene, apparently intent on sacrificing himself to give the rest of his friends (including his pregnant sister Mia and her boyfriend Brian) a chance at freedom and riches, I bought it. The film had built up a genuine 'series finale' vibe, and it seemed completely appropriate that the franchise would end with Dom, the series's most prominent character, giving his life so that his sister's unborn child wouldn't have to grow up without a father. When Toretto miraculously survived his one-man cannon-ball run, I rolled my eyes a bit. It wasn't until a week later that I remembered that this fifth film actually took place BEFORE the third film in the series (Tokyo Drift), at the end of which Vin Deisel made a cameo appearance. Point being, Dominic Toretto was never in danger. But the film was so unexpectedly compelling and exciting that I completely forgot what I already knew going in.