By Joe Suszczynski
Throughout cinema there have been many different gangster movies. Some of the famous ones are The Godfather, Goodfellas, and Scarface. Those movies stand out as timeless classics.
Recently the list of gangster movies had one more added with Gangster Squad. Gangster Squad takes place after WWII in Los Angeles when Brooklyn-born gangster Meyer “Mickey” Cohen ( Sean Penn) was working his way up the crime ladder.
This movie was not horrendous like some gangster flicks, but it was not fantastic either; this movie finds itself to be stuck in the middle.
On the positive side some of the performances were exceptional. Penn’s performance as Mickey Cohen was good. His character seemed believable and really captured what it’s like to be a ruthless gangster.
Josh Brolin did an excellent job portraying his character as the hard-nosed police sergeant John O’Mara who is gunning to shut down Cohen’s growing crime empire in Los Angeles. Brolin throughout most of his film career has been casted as the tough guy archetype, which is acceptable because he has the look and believability of a person who has the ability to beat people up either with or without a purpose.
The action scenes were decent. The shoot-out scenes were enjoyable and the movie did have terrific car chases, which kept me interested in the film.
One thing that takes me away from this film is the over use of clichés. I acknowledge there are clichés in every film, but the movies I enjoy with said clichés either do not over use them or the movie makes aware that they are using clichés and makes them funny.
The writing seemed too predictable at times. There were a few times during the film where I expected certain things to happen in future scenes. Granted that can be with every movie, but if the occurrence of predictability repeats itself, it’s flawed writing on the screenwriter’s part.
Overall this film was just another average gangster flick. It doesn’t stack up to the timeless classics, but it does not belong in the dumpster either. If it’s any suggestion of mine, wait to rent this movie from Redbox. Even with the six dollar ticket, this film is still not worth it.
