Gangster Squad

Directed by Ruben Fleischer, Gangster Squad follows a group of tough-talking ’40s detectives – including Josh Brolin’s John O’Mara, Ryan Gosling’s Jerry Wooters, and Anthony Mackie’s Coleman Harris – as they endeavor to take down a ruthless, vicious mob kingpin named Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). Filmmaker Fleischer, working from Will Beall’s screenplay, has infused Gangster Squad with a slick and incredibly fast-paced feel that is, at the outset, impossible to resist, with the engaging, entertaining atmosphere heightened by the efforts of an eclectic supporting cast that boasts, among others, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, and Giovanni Ribisi. The progressively familiar atmosphere becomes more and more problematic, however, as there’s ultimately little here that viewers haven’t seen countless times before – with Beall’s continuing reliance on hackneyed elements paving the way for a midsection that is, for the most part, watchable yet far from gripping. (Fleischer has, admittedly, peppered the narrative with a handful of unexpectedly enthralling moments, with the best and most potent example of this a stirring shootout involving Gosling’s ambivalent character.) The movie’s less-than-engrossing vibe is exacerbated by Dion Beebe’s dishearteningly underwhelming cinematography, with the slick and impossible-to-ignore digital sheen lending many sequences, particularly those set at night, a low-rent feel that proves disastrous – with the cheap-looking climactic stretch certainly standing as an apt example of this. The end result is a passable – just barely – thriller that benefits substantially from the efforts of its star-heavy cast, which is a shame, undoubtedly, given the endless potential afforded by the film’s palpably promising setup.

**1/2 out of ****