There have been so many films made about American crime in
the post-war years – and so many great ones at that – it's surely a challenge
for any new take on this era to feel fresh. Ruben Fleischer's Gangster Squad
attempts to distinguish itself with flashy direction and an interesting angle
on a notorious real-life kingpin, but the former overwhelms the latter to
disastrous effect. This is Fleischer's third feature – after the intermittently
amusing Zombieland and the slapdash 30 Minutes or Less – and it is by far his
most ambitious production yet. But that increase in scope has apparently prompted
Fleischer to liven up his aesthetic style appropriately, and there's a horrible
mismatch between his garish contemporary visuals and the dully familiar
narrative.
If you've heard of Gangster Squad at all it may be because
of the film's troubled production. The picture was delayed for reshoots and
reedits late last year because of a scene in a cinema that suffered from troubling echoes of the tragic shooting in Aurora. Perhaps the reshoots had an
impact on the tone of the film, because as it stands Gangster Squad is a film
that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be – an old-fashioned mob movie, a contemporary
spin on classic themes, or an homage to earlier pictures. In fact,
the film's script and characterisation is so appallingly clichéd and witless I
almost suspected that it might be a spoof.
Gangster Squad claims to be "inspired by a true
story" but when the filmmakers have blithely rewritten the well-known fate
of Mickey Cohen (played here by Sean Penn), who's to say what we can believe? The
protagonist here certainly seems too good to be true. Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin)
is a war hero-turned detective; tough, square and incorruptible. We are
introduced to him as he cleans out a roomful of Cohen's goons single-handed,
and as one of the LAPD's few honest cops, he is selected by Chief Parker (Nick
Nolte, at his gravelliest) to head up an off-the-books squad aimed taking down
Cohen's operations through brute force. O'Mara hires a team, which consists of laid-back
ladies' man Ryan Gosling (bored, mannered, irritating), knife-throwing Harlem
cop Anthony Mackie and surveillance geek Giovanni Ribisi (both disposable).
These characters have no more depth to them than the brief descriptions I've
outlined, and they seem to have stepped right off the pages of a comic book –
literally so, in the case of Robert Patrick's sharpshooting cowboy.
Like the characters, the LA of Gangster Squad is all surface.
Fleischer is obviously in thrall to the glamour of this era, from the sharp
suits and to the neon-lit nightclubs, but it all looks too clean and too fake,
thanks to Dion Beebe's over-stylised digital cinematography. Above all,
however, Fleischer is in thrall to the violence these men (it's always the men;
women are here to simper and worry) do to each other. There's a grim sadism
apparent in the way the director utilises slow-motion so excessively to watch
bullets fly from Tommy guns and tear through flesh; the film may have removed
the one sequence that the filmmakers feared would offend, but the content that
remains is still entirely repugnant.
It's all rather exhausting to watch, especially when Sean
Penn is on screen. While most of the actors appear subdued (notably Ryan Gosling
and Emma Stone, whose easy chemistry was the highlight of Crazy, Stupid, Love.),
Penn chews the scenery with a ferocity and relish that I haven't seen from an
actor in many years. With a permanent snarl on his lips and his eyes glaring
out from under a thick prosthetic brow, he looks more like a refugee from Dick
Tracy than the real Cohen, and his excruciating display only highlights what a ridiculously
cartoonish fiasco this is. Gangster Squad is ugly, vapid and irredeemably
stupid; it wallows in violence but ends up looking and feeling about as authentic
as Bugsy Malone. Instead of wasting time and money on this garbage, just watch
LA Confidential again. See how the grown-ups do it.