My first film of the year was the slightly-delayed big-budget post-war Los Angeles-set gangster flick, GANGSTER SQUAD. Strangely - and the good people of Warner Bros will have to explain this - the public was allowed to see the film before the press. (The London multi-media press screening is on Tuesday 8 January at the Empire Leicester Square.) I saw it at the O2 North Greenwich on Thursday 3 January.
The first thing we see is Sean Penn hitting the heavy bag. What's he got against shopping at Somerfields? you might ask. I'm referring to the bag used by professional boxers. Penn plays Los Angeles gangster Mickey Cohen as an uncompromising force of nature, though not too uncompromising; he does not hit women or send back his pheasant dinner for being undercooked. In a script by Will Beall (any relation to Ally Mc?) Cohen describes himself as a beneficiary of manifest destiny. It is his right to kill anyone who lets him down or stands in the way of him taking over the illegal gambling operation in the City of Angels. Nevertheless, he's actually not that good at identifying and putting a stop to the 'Gangster Squad' of the title.
They are led by John O'Mara (Josh Brolin), the latest in a line of square-jawed family men who appear in capers like this. He is hired by the grizzly LA police chief (Nick Nolte) to head up a hit squad to disrupt Cohen's operations - not kill him, mind, because, as they say in THE MUPPETS, that would make a short movie.
Having seen Brian de Palma's THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987), O'Mara recruits an old timer with dodgy facial hair (Robert Patrick), a brainy guy (Giovanni Ribisi) and someone ethnic (Anthony Mackie). For good measure, there is also a Latino (Michael Pena) as we mustn't leave out that demographic. Ryan Gosling also pops up as the box-office draw, sorry, cynical cop who decides he needs to take a stand and who makes eyes and other body parts for Cohen's significant other, Grace (Emma Stone from CRAZY STUPID LOVE and THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN - two films where the titles over-sold the content).
So what happens? Pretty much everything you would expect. The gangster squad have some success blowing stuff up after a failed attempt to shut down a casino ends up with two of their number getting arrested in Burbank - yes, Burbank. There's an in-joke in there somewhere. Cohen gets his house bugged and mistakes the action taken against him as being carried out by his rivals. When they don't take his money, the quarter (25 cents) drops: 'cops!' he snarls.
Director Ruben Fleischer has actually seen more than one Brian de Palma. He quotes from SCARFACE when a bad guy is killed using a power tool - 'you know the drill!' This being a 15 rated film, the violence is fairly tame. The most gory sequence involves a man chained to two trucks being pulled apart - Fleischer has also seen THE HITCHER (1986).
When Jerry (Gosling) is hit in the face by O'Mara, he remarks. 'This is where I get off!' Actually I thought he did that with Grace. Still, you cannot blame O'Mara for wanting to tackle Cohen, especially as his goons shot up the house where his pregnant wife (Mireille Enos) lives.
Like JACK REACHER, it ends in a fist fight. Well, a heavy bag in Act One has to turn into Josh Brolin in Act Five - can't see the connection myself. It is all hopelessly average - perfectly watchable if you are unfamiliar with the genre but unsophisticated in comparison to the likes of LA CONFIDENTIAL (1997). It opens in UK cinemas on 10 January and in the US the following day.
