Gangster Squad Movie Reviews

Honest and fearless, John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) of LAPD is assigned the job of taking down gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). He is asked to form his own unit, comprising of like-minded, skilled men who can put an end to Mickey's growing crime empire. He thus forms his own 'gangster squad'. The only difference being, his squad will have to violently kill in order to restore order in the city. When acting heavy-weights like Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling

Ever since its inception, cinema, through the years, has been taken in by the world of organised crime. 2013 proves no different with Gangster Squad hitting the screens. Set in Los Angeles after World War II, the film sees fervent lawman Sergeant John O'Mara (Brolin) rustling a bunch of men to challenge the influence of gangster Mickey Cohen (Penn) who has the judiciary and the law in his pocket. The men in his team are up to the task

The majority of Hollywood products exude style over substance, but sometimes there is so much style that it just works in the film’s favour. Gangster Squad is one such instance. Directed by Ruben Fleischer who made the hilarious Zombieland, Gangster Squad is a mishmash of The Untouchables, Goodfellas and Hoodlum and seems like a creamy resultant puree after tossing the three films into a mixie. It’s got an incredible lead cast of Sean Penn

The very opening scene of Gangster Squad sets the tone for this brutally violent mobster movie - an unsympathetic mafioso rips his enemy in two by chaining him to cars pulling in opposite directions. That barbaric mob-boss is Mickey Cohen, Los Angeles' most feared gangster, played by Sean Penn in this 1949-set thriller inspired by real events and real people. Penn offering yet another intense, committed performance, shines as the former

Cops and cons get equally dirty with retro swagger in Ruben Fleischer's new film, supposedly based on true events. Gangster Squad is about a special unit set up by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to wipe out the powerful Mickey Cohen, who wanted to wrest control of the city using mafia connections. The idea itself is nothing new. Period crime thrillers banking on police-ops against organised crime in the past have ranged from

Gangster Squad is less a movie than a costume party run amok. Set in a late-’40s Los Angeles painted in cartoon colours rather than noir shadows, it is a hectic jumble of fedoras and zoot suits, stockings and cigarettes, and red femme-fatale dresses. The accessories of choice are guns of various calibers and styles, deployed to drown out — or perhaps to emphasise — knucklehead dialogue and inept storytelling. The script, by Will Beall

So Light is this tone of this purportedly dark mobster noir that even the freckles on the face of Emma Stone must get meticulously airbrushed out. Quite in the same vein, this "inspired by a true story" film about a secret cop squad that brought down dreaded ganglord Mickey Cohen is more glamour than grim, glib than grand, gore than guts. It's also incessantly violent and surprisingly repetitive. Penn hams through the role of Cohen, oscillating between