Gangster Squad Review
Went to see Gangster Squad, and wow what can I say short of that movie was fantastic! 5 Stars all around. Great acting, great story, and it was very believable. The movie is about the famous boxer turned mobster, Mickey Cohen, and the “Gangster Squad”, a group of police officers sanctioned by the Chief of Police to do whatever is necessary to rid 1949 Los Angeles of Mickey Cohen and his Mafia Organization.
As soon as the movie starts you find out just how ruthless Mickey Cohen, portrayed by the brilliant acting of Sean Pean, is when you see he has a man chained by his legs and arms to two separate vehicles that gruesomely rip the man a part by driving in opposite directions. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Mickey lets his dogs loose to eat the now separated man. Then we jump to Detective John O’Mara, played excellently by Josh Brolin. O’Mara is on the heels of a scumbag pimp who’s tricking women into following him into a prostitution ring by saying he’s in the film business and thinks they’d do great if they tried out for an audition. O’Mara is on to this and is the only cop brave enough to go against the Cohen Organization and step into their territory. We see just how gritty O’Mara can get, no punches held and he’s not afraid to fight dirty if he has to taking out multiple goons on his way to saving the girl.
Everyone knows you don’t mess with Mickey Cohen though. He’s got the judicial system in his pocket along with plenty of cops which leads to his men being set free minutes after they arrive at the police station. This of course attracts the attention of the Chief of Police, played by Nick Nolte. The Chief recruits O’Mara to form a squad that will destroy the Cohen organization except there’s a catch. The squad will be completely off the books, no names, no badges, no mercy. The Chief doesn’t want Cohen killed, but he wants to send a message that the city of L.A. will not tolerate organized crime.
O’Mara is a married man who has a pregnant wife at home, Connie, portrayed by Mireille Enos. While I’ve never heard of the actress, she did a great job being the concerned, yet supporting wife of a cop. Connie plays a big part in helping the formation of the gangster squad guiding her husband with which men he should enlist for the task.
The first recruit is Sgt. Jerry Wooters played by Ryan Gosling. A fast talking ladies man, who doesn’t mind crossing the line to get what he wants. A great example being Grace Faraday, Mickey Cohen’s lady, played by the lovely Emma Stone. Wooters proves to be very valuable to the squad and becomes O’Mara’s right hand. Then we have Officer Coleman Harris played by Anthony Mackie, another cop who isn’t afraid to get dirty. He’s a bit of a knife specialist, and I wish they would have showed off this skill a bit more. Next there is Officer Conway Keeler, played by Giovanni Ribisi. He’s another family man who joins the squad because he wants to see a brighter future for his son when he grows up. Keeler is like the “Murdock” of the group, he’s one of those super genius types who’s great with gadgets and can put together anything. Then finally we have Officer Max Kennard, portrayed by Robert Patrick. He’s basically the quickest gun in the West. And Kennard’s partner, Officer Navidad Ramirez, played by Michael Peña.
Together they form the Gangster Squad that albeit in the beginning they have no idea what they are doing. It’s a pretty laughable endeavor, but they soon figure it out. Mickey Cohen, played by Sean Pean is completely ruthless as mentioned earlier. He has a case of the Scarface syndrome and won’t stop until the West Coast is his even cutting his ties with the Mafia Families in Chicago and threatening to go after them if they wage war. The bosses lady, Grace Faraday does very well as a supporting actress. Had the movie been longer, she probably could have played a more meaningful role to the film.
Ruben Fleischer’s had a great vision when directing this film. He draws from a lot of other great action films and ties them all into one. John Woo’s slow motion bullet time. Tarantino’s shock value, and that classic mobster/gangster feeling that Martin Scorsese does so well in his films. There were a whole lot of cool cinematic scenes to go “oooh” and “ahhh” over during the film. The writing was top-notch by Will Beall as well. While I’m not familiar with the writer, he did a great job portraying the events of this movie that were based on a True Story.
This movie isn’t for the light-hearted however. While it’s not quite as gory as a Quentin Tarantino film, there is a whole lot of murder and blood everywhere. Rather then showing you the violence, they do a great job of painting you a mental image (Think the chainsaw scene from Scarface). They do some messed up stuff, pouring acid on a man, ripping a man in half with a car, using an electric drill on a mans skull… Again, the picture is painted without actually giving you the graphic visual, but you definitely get the sense that yeah, that just happened. However, other than the strong violent content and cussing, the movie was pretty clean. No real lewd conversation takes place, there’s a very brief cabaret scene where a girl is wearing tassels, but no nudity is shown the entire movie.
This will easily be one of the best action films of 2013, and guaranteed to land some awards. I give it 5/5 Stars. Go see it!
