FILM REVIEWS: Gangster Squad

Potential is often squandered in Hollywood, but I have yet to see such a perfect example of it as Gangster Squad. Trying to be clever in an LA Confidential kind of way, an all-star cast (including Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, and Sean Penn) is assembled in a big-budget gangster blockbuster set in 1940s Los Angeles. There's a shitload of gunplay, an overabundance of gore, and the gratuitous Emma Stone as the stereotypical and one-dimensional love interest. Everyone's armed to the teeth, and they seem to be having a great time. What could go wrong?

EVERYTHING. But I'll refrain from ranting and get to the plot. Gangster Squad is about a group of detectives in LA who are assigned to wage guerrilla war against a mob super-boss (Penn). This premise alone is ludicrous. Excuse me if I find it hard to believe that the LAPD would assign a group of officers to literally escalate an already tense gang war in a process that kills dozens of innocent civilians and razes whole buildings to the ground. But hey, benefit of the doubt, suspend your disbelief, it's just a movie, right? Wrong. If a movie creates its own little world in which ridiculous things are possible, that's all okay, as long as it follows the rules that it set up. Gangster Squad, however, is supposed to take place in the real world, meaning that people should act, talk, and make decisions the way they normally would. And they just don't do that in this film.

Speaking of which... the dialogue in Gangster Squad is some of the worst I have ever heard. I am talking ANUS OF CINEMA shit right here, ladies and gentlemen-- Here's some of the corniest, lamest, and most by-the-numbers lines:

"The war path? Looks like he's on the 'gimme some more' path."

"You're kind, you don't talk too much, you're a demon in the sack..."

"You know, this... a brighter future... this is what we fought for."

"I don't want out of town, I want out of this life."

And it's not just how poorly written these lines are, it's their delivery. Brolin never bothers taking his character outside of the typical gruff and commanding policeman, and Gosling basically tries to be his old character from Drive, just with more lines. He sounds whiny, meek, and shy. His whole mysterious pretty-boy act might charm the pants off of millions of fangirls (literally), but at the end of the day it's a one-note actor playing a one-note character. Penn, meanwhile, is just as awful and nasty as you should want a villain to be, but he's pretty bland as well. There's nothing more to his character than THE BAD GUY. He might as well have it tattooed over his forehead. The movie establishes that he is essentially the Antichrist within the first five minutes, so in every subsequent scene, he has to top himself. He becomes so overly indulgent in his role as the bad guy that it's hard to watch-- for all the wrong reasons.

However, the movie does have a warm, fuzzy, 1940s feel to it, which I give it credit for. It's fun watching old cars getting shot up by guys with tommyguns in coats, and it's all set to a soundtrack that gives it a pleasant and fitting retro vibe. Of course, this basic setup allows room for even more terrible dialogue. I couldn't count on all my appendages how many times Brolin and Gosling talked about how they went to war, and then came back from war to a war, and how deep and meaningful this sappy, crappy dialogue is... and it most definitely gets old fast. Then in the end, Brolin rips off Dirty Harry and throws his badge in the ocean in a scene so bland and pathetically generic I wanted to scream.

Final Score for Gangster Squad: 3/10 stars. This is not a movie that is worth your spare time, but fans of explosions and mobsters saying cutesy one-liners should revere this movie as a message straight from heaven. Really, the target audience for this thing is very small, as it sets up a Scarface-style showdown with plenty of blood and gore, but pulls back at the last second to pretend that it's something it's not-- Intelligent. It's a fun movie, and I won't deny that I wanted Penn dead with a PASSION, but if you want serious and smart entertainment, I advise you look elsewhere.