Gangster Squad or I Believe Ya But My Tommy Gun Don't!

Gangster Squad
Director:Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, and Sean Penn
New Release Review

January has been an interesting month for new film releases. January always tends to be a dry month for thought-provoking, mind-altering, laugh-out-loud films, and this year has been no different. Luckily, Christine and I had a few movies that were released in December to play catch up with. Gangster Squad is the first official new film of 2013 for Don't Sit Next To Us and we were pleasantly surprised with our thoughts on the "based on a true story" film.

Gangster Squad takes on the story of Mickey Cohen (played by hot-headed Penn), the true life Jewish gangster, who at one point in time, was poised to be the most powerful gangster in Los Angeles. The "Gangster Squad" was a secret police unit that took on the seemingly impossible task of destroying all of Cohen's criminal operations and ultimately Cohen himself. Sergeant John O'Mara (Brolin) leads a team of misfit cops on a unplanned and at most times disorganized, vigilante-type attack on Cohen's money laundering outfits around LA, hoping to restore law and order back to the City of Angels. O'Mara recruits fellow cops Jerry Wooters (Gosling),Coleman Harris (Anthony Mackie), Navidad Ramirez (Michael Pena), Conway Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) and Max Kennard (Robert Patrick) and they begin calling themselves the "Gangster Squad".

The story seems one-sided, as the squad delivers significant blows to Cohen's operations but things aren't always as they seem. And this is Sean Penn we're talking about here! He doesn't just roll over and play dead! And it wouldn't be much of a "gangster" movie if there wasn't a fairly even battle between the good guys and the bad guys.

I have to admit - I really enjoyed this film. It was fun. It wasn't long - so it was easy to stay captivated even when the few minor lulls in the story popped up. There were funny moments, which surprised me. I didn't expect the film to be as flexible as it was. I expected it to try and be Public Enemies and we all know, we won't see another "gangster" movie that is as well done as that film was. Gangster Squad combined action, comedy, thriller, and era film genres to make one very likable movie.

It definitely helped that the cast was great. This movie would not have been as enjoyable as it was if the cast was sub-par. Nice to see some big names working together in this film. Brolin and Gosling had a decent chemistry, in a older brother-younger brother type way. Gosling's chemistry, however, lacked with Emma Stone (who played the love interest of both Gosling and Penn) even though their previous film together, Crazy, Stupid, Love demonstrated that they could have an extraordinary amount of chemistry, if the characters and storyline were more developed.

Penn was eerily too good in the role of mob boss Cohen. He plays the angry, tough guy role way too well. When he's yelling at people on screen, you feel like he's yelling at you, and I caught myself cowering in my seat several times. However, thanks to Community, all I could think of the entire film was this hilarious scene from season 3:

Final Verdict: See it. Take it for what it is: a fun, action packed, "gangster" movie. Great scenes, clothes, and sayings from the 40s. There were a few scenes that were too similar to other action films (Die Hard, The Matrix, even Scarface) and the "tommy" guns had me thinking of Home Alone 2 (hence the title of this review). But as a movie geek, finding similarities in films tends to happen a lot when watching any film.  Enough action and chuckles to keep the boys entertained. And for the ladies, do we really need an excuse to watch Gosling on the big screen?

Rotten Tomatoes