Gangster Squad (2013)

Gangster Squad, a movie about assembling a team for a top-secret mission, is a film whose story resembles its own structure, in that the film is as much an assembly of component parts from other prominent films in the genre.  Whether this collage method hurts the film is up for debate (though I contend that the comparisons do violence to the film), but the final product before us is a stylish and reliably enjoyable experience.

Los Angeles, 1949, is the playground of mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), who lives beyond the reach of the corrupt law force until Chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) establishes an extralegal “gangster squad” to take down Cohen without the sanction of their badges.  Among others, “Sarge” John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) recruits smooth-talking Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) to join the squad, unaware that Wooters has been romancing Cohen’s girl Grace (Emma Stone).

When I initially described the movie as a cross between the plot of The Untouchables and the look of L.A. Confidential, I tried to do so without derision, recognizing almost immediately that Gangster Squad is not of the same A-list caliber as those two instant classics.  In fact, my chief complaint about Gangster Squad – that it doesn’t do anything particularly new with the genre – stems from my familiarity with the other two films to the point of absorption; knowing The Untouchables as well as I do made the similarities apparent to the point of prediction and distraction.

What Gangster Squad does not do, then, is break new ground.  But does it have to?  On one level, probably, because who wants to see remake after remake, but on the other hand my proclivity for writing favorable reviews stems from my chief intention when going to the movies:  I want to have a good time.  And Gangster Squad allowed me to do just that.  I admit the film isn’t perfect – the Manichean worldview with accompanying narration is a bit heavyhanded, and we never really find out Grace’s angle – but what works in the film is the atmosphere of old Hollywood mixed with the contemporary aesthetic and sense of humor.

Brolin and Gosling turn in reliably engaging performances, and the other members of the squad – though likely not authentic – possess a modern sensibility and delightful self-awareness, particularly Robert Patrick’s Wild West throwback.  The biggest surprise is not Stone finally playing a postwar vamp (a type, incidentally, into which she fits quite well) but rather Penn’s performance as Cohen.  Obscured behind Dick Tracy makeup, Penn never plays too cool for the room nor hides behind his Oscar cred (or otherwise irksome off-screen persona); instead, he gets right into the spirit of the movie and embraces the hammy characterization required of his villainous role.  While Gosling is clearly a rising star (if he’s not there already), it’s hard not to say that Penn steals the show even more than De Niro did in The Untouchables.

Gangster Squad exists somewhere in the gray zone between modern mobster movie (i.e., The Departed) and retro gangster chic (i.e., Boardwalk Empire).  But the blending of the two modes works for the film because of how unapologetically stylized it is; nothing seems accidental, and the film seems aware of its own indulgences, particularly the video game-esque shootout sequences.  I’m usually opposed to movies that play the “video game card,” but Gangster Squad knows itself well enough to ramp up the visuals in order to compensate for that potential distance from the audience.

It isn’t an instant classic, to be sure, but I suspect that the people who will be drawn to Gangster Squad are exactly the kinds of people for whom the film was made – those who will find themselves entertained by the time the credits roll.  Count me among them.

Gangster Squad is rated R “for strong violence and language.”  The film is surprisingly bloody, almost Tarantino-lite, and the language is standard “R” fare, with a few implied sexual encounters for good measure.

On Thursday, our road to the Oscars continues with Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty.  Stay tuned!

Monday at the Movies - July 2, 2012

Welcome to Week Twenty-Four of “Monday at the Movies,” in which I tie up a few loose ends on movie series whose final installments haven’t been reviewed yet on this site.

Hulk (2003) – If I’m not yet on record as saying that Mark Ruffalo is the definitive Hulk actor, quote me on that because I’ve just rewatched Ang Lee’s Hulk, starring Eric Bana as the jade giant and don’t have a lot of good things to say about it.  For one, the plot is overfilled with antagonists with competing interests; consequently, none of them (save, maybe, Nick Nolte as Bruce Banner’s evil father) becomes terribly compelling – not Josh Lucas as a cutthroat corporate scientist, nor Sam Elliott as General “Thunderbolt” Ross.  What we do get is the curious directorial choice to drain the film of any positive emotion; all the characters are either broken or emotionless (or both), which allows some of the acting to walk the line between nuance and flatness.  Unfortunately, Jennifer Connelly as Betty Ross is the worst offender here; at moments, her affection for Bruce is touching, but at others she looks like she’s staring at cue cards written in a foreign language.  But the film’s worst offense isn’t its emotional flatness or sense of bleak despair, but rather it tampers with Bruce Banner’s canonical origin in a way that fundamentally alters the character.  I can pardon the 2008 film’s link to the Captain America super-soldier serum as an exercise in world-building, but the connection to the father is purely imagined and ultimately unfulfilling since it never quite makes sense – especially at the end when a deus ex militia ends a major fight that, once again, is more about which can be out-angst the other than it is about superheroic adventuring.  I wanted to like this, but it fell flat and ranks below the Norton interpretation.  Long live Ruffalo.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) – It’s no secret to readers of this blog that I’m a huge fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and for my money the series goes four for four with this soft reboot, which finds Captains Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) in a quest to find the Fountain of Youth – or at least prevent the dread pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his shifty daughter Angelica (Penélope Cruz) from reaching it.  The film is instantly accessible, building a new world without relying on or scrapping entirely the preceding trilogy.  Instead, the series goes off in an exciting new direction, promising a healthy spirit of competition between Jack and Barbossa for future films.  One of the highlights of At World’s End was seeing Depp and Rush out-pirate each other, a plot element that recurs here to great success.  What’s more, personal favorite McShane is delightfully menacing, unequivocally embracing his character and reveling in his mischief; think of the unswerving evil and odd syntax Al Swearengen of Deadwood, but with an enormous smoldering beard and far fewer F-bombs.  And Cruz’s Angelica brings a fun new character to the franchise, carrying on impressive repartee and even occasionally matching Depp, who brings his A-game as always.  Indeed, if I have complaints, it’s that Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack is more recycled than original, and Judi Dench has far too small a cameo role as a royal lady wooed by Captain Jack.  Though it didn’t receive much critical love, On Stranger Tides is more than satisfying, and its box-office receipts thankfully made a fifth film (allegedly in the works) a viable prospect.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) – While the fourth Pirates film proved the franchise still had steam, Superman IV took a critical drubbing and continues to be hammered by superhero fans who regard its very name as shorthand for the worst in the genre.  But when I finally watched it this week, to my surprise there’s actually a lot in the film that works, making me wish that had been given a bigger budget and a better script editor.  Christopher Reeve is back for his last outing as the Man of Steel, facing Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor and evil clone Nuclear (“Nucular”) Man.  The film is incredibly brief, meaning that the story is overly compressed, with characterization shortchanged for protracted and uninspiring action pieces which often cut away from the action (the film’s only explosion happens off-screen).  The screenplay, too, is weak in places, with Superman manifesting bizarre new powers and breaking his own rules several times; the secondary villains, moguls who buy the Daily Planet, are overdrawn and poorly performed, and the filmmakers apparently forgot that humans can’t breathe in space.  But there’s a good amount of the film that does succeed; Reeve and Hackman in particular are fantastic (even if the latter is saddled with Jon Cryer for a sidekick), their performances feeding off each other and nailing the heart of their character’s relationship with expressive frowns and shrugs.  Additionally, Jackie Cooper gets a terrific character arc as Perry White, who refuses to compromise his values in the face of the changing landscape of journalism.  Though the script is excessively preachy about the woes of nuclear weaponry, I’m surprised to say that I enjoyed it more than I thought it would – at least, more than the unfortunate Superman III.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!