‘Gangster Squad’ misses its mark

Gangster Squad Review

2 out of 5 stars

It’s been a while since fans of gangster films have had a movie to really get excited about. As such, the delayed Gangster Squad has served as a beacon of hope since the first trailer was released. With a strong cast and what looked to be plenty of interesting moments, fans of the genre were left waiting for what seemed like the next great gangster film.

Unfortunately, this vision didn’t come to pass. Though Gangster Squad features plenty of fun action scenes and period flair, the final product is missing the vision and creative spark necessary to reach the ranks of Goodfellas and The Godfather.

Gangster Squad is set in 1948 Los Angeles and is inspired by the true story of crime boss Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). Cohen has already brought much of the city’s organized crime under his control, with all manner of corrupt lawmen under his thumb.

To combat Cohen and try to take the city back, Sergeant John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) is put in charge of a secret “gangster squad” unit. A small group of a half dozen men, the gangster squad works to bust up Cohen’s operations and bring his criminal empire toppling down.

As far as the plot goes, that’s about all that Gangster Squad has to offer. There are a few thin subplots, including a romance between squad member Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) and Cohen’s girlfriend Grace Faraday (Emma Stone), but nothing ever really strays too far from the main idea of busting skulls and late-night fire fights.

This represents one of Gangster Squad’s biggest problems, which is a lack of interesting characters. After the gang is brought together, the film becomes trapped on the plot railroad, more concerned with checking off story points than with developing the characters.

As an example, the majority of the characters are easier to recognize by their stereotype than their name. Giovanni Ribisi is the science guy. Nick Nolte is the gruff police chief. Robert Patrick is the grizzled old sharpshooter. The characters never evolve beyond these one-dimensional elements. Even Brolin’s O’Mara barely leaves an impression outside of murky motivations of honor and duty.

All of this would be fine if the story itself was exciting, but there’s just no meat to the narrative. In fact, it feels like a poor man’s version of Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables — all of the action, but none of the depth.

The lack of strong drama may be linked back to the director. Gangster Squad is Ruben Fleischer’s first attempt at a more dramatic film. Unfortunately, that shows, and the director’s comedy roots have an unfortunate habit of showing throughout the film’s runtime.

At times, this can actually be to the film’s benefit. When characters are quipping over the events going on around them, there are genuine laughs to be had. However, many of the film’s more dramatic moments are cut down by attempts at humor instead of character development.

To the film’s credit, the action scenes in Gangster Squad are all exciting and well-choreographed. This is especially true when the new unit is still in over their heads and cause more chaos than they stop. The Chinatown shootout is also a standout.

Sadly, even the action goes too far in the end, with the film’s climax falling into a trap of CGI and idiotic decisions made by the main characters. What little believability the film has is thrown out in service to a more cinematic finale, and it hurts the overall flow.

The worst thing about Gangster Squad is that there was so much potential for something special. With a cast made up of some cinema’s best performers, a true story to draw inspiration from and the budget to pull off some great action scenes, it seemed that Gangster Squad was prepared to offer a unique, exciting entry in the crime genre.

Instead, underdeveloped characters, a paint-by-numbers story and a ridiculous finale all add together to make Gangster Squad a disappointing period piece that doesn’t warrant a second thought once you’ve left the theater.