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In the current climate where gun control is the topic on everybody’s minds, can a film such as “Gangster Squad” expect to perform well during its opening weekend?
4.5/5 review
Rated R for Strong Violence and Language
It may be due to the dark and chaotic world we have come to live in during this past decade or it may just be the post-holidays blues but, like clockwork, January is the month where we see either low-budget horror schlock or factory-made crime dramas. Naturally I was a tad cautious when going into this film.
Gangster Squad is set in 1949 and stars Josh Brolin, who plays a detective that is appointed to create an “off-the-books” squad of officers to take down L.A. gangster, Mickey Cohen, played by Sean Penn. Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Nick Nolte round out the cast.
The first thing that I immediately noticed with this film is how it seems to take cues from various other films and film genres. On the exterior, we see a neo-noir tale of gangsters and lawmen fighting for control of Los Angeles. As we get deeper, we see a contemporary war story about a group of soldiers looking for a cause worth fighting for, as many of the central characters are veterans of World War II.
We also see shades of a classic western, filled with plenty of gun-slinging and barroom brawls with a subtle nod to films such as Seven Samurai, where a team of warriors is slowly brought together to do battle with nefarious villains.
All of these elements come together to tell a fairly engaging story that will have you hooked
Gangster Squad feels like one that would’ve been made during the days of the Studio System, when films were churned out in the same manner that the very paper you now read was printed, cut, bundled and delivered to the various kiosks around campus.
Point being, the film has a factory-made feel to it, something churned out by the Hollywood machine for consumption by the masses. It feels like an “A film” rather than a “B film.”
There’s nothing really of note when it comes to the technical aspects of the film, it has textbook cinematography, textbook editing and even fairly predictable textbook writing. The acting is pretty good, but it’s pretty much what you’d expect from the actors involved.
The only actor I had a mild problem with was Ryan Gosling, mostly because the high voiced accent he went with for his performance was a little grating. The people behind this film made the right move by not having him as a dominant character in the early parts of the movie, allowing his performance and character to grow on me as a viewer.
The only other noticeable detraction was in the third act where there’s a very cheesy slow mo trailer-bait sequence that clashes with the more “classic” aesthetic established earlier in the film. That sequence just felt out of place and pointless, almost like a forced homage to films like Scarface.
Overall, the film is enjoyable, but not for those who can’t really stomach the amounts of violence and gore that is featured predominately in the neo-noir genre. If you’re a fan of the “war on crime” type of movies, then you’ll find this to be enjoyable. If you’re part of the film student/aficionado crowd, there’s some good stuff for you here as well. However, the film loses some points for the slow mo sequence in the third act.
