Review of Gangster Squad (2013) by Harry W — 26 Sep 2014

Gangster Squad is a film which fails to develop its concept far and instead fills it with excessive violence and not a hint of originality. Normally I would be on board for something like this, but considering that the quantity of action reaches overkill and that it fails to take advantage of its talented cast, Gangster Squad is not a success in my eyes.

That's not to say its a completely bad film. I mean it has some of the best action available to contemporary cinema, but it's just too reliant on it for a film about gangsters. It just really over kills it and turns Gangster Squad into a film memorable as nothing more than a lavishly designed violence piece. Despite the fact that yes, the production design, lighting, costume and cinematography is all good, Gangster Squad fails to be much more than a comic book adapted straight to screen. I mean, it looks good on the surface, and the action looks good, so Gangster Squad is certainly a memorable visual experience, but it just needed to be more.

Considering that Gangster Squad holds the benefit of Josh Brolin and Sean Penn's skilled performances, as well as the talented efforts of Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling and especially for dramatic supporting effort of Nick Nolte, you'd think it would be better. Unfortunately, riding the excessive action overkill and the flimsy direction from Ruben Fleischer, Gangster Squad is an excessively fictionalised account of a real historical event about the attempt to stop Mickey Cohen which is glamourised through its violence but not dramatised well or engineered for entertainment. And working with Will Beall's insufficient script and a series of boring plot dynamics outside of the action scenes, Gangster Squad really just utterly comes off being a thoughtless and overly violent production which wastes the talents of its cast, film designers and editors on this poorly directed MA15+ version of Dick Tracy.