In 1987, one of the best ‘gangster’ movies ever made was in
theaters. The Untouchables was by
director Brian De Palma and featured Kevin Costner and Sean Connery taking down
Robert de Niro’s Al Capone.
The movie was gritty, cool and slick. It’s one of Kevin Costner’s best
(non-baseball) movies. Sean Connery was
perfect and deNiro was Oscar nominated.
The baseball bat should have also been nominated. The movie featured a scene with a staircase
and a baby carriage that is infamous…to the point it was spoofed in a Naked Gun
movie.
Flash forward to 2013 and we get Gangster Squad. It’s not nearly as good as the Untouchables.
Mickey Cohen was a real-life crime lord who was born in 1913
in New York. He moved to the West Coast, trained as a boxer, and won several
prizefights throughout the 30s. During
prohibition he moved to Chicago, where he met Al Capone. He had a brief stint in prison, went back
west and worked with Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel while setting up the
Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. In 1950 – he was investigated along with other
gangsters and was convicted of tax evasion.
He spent four years in prison, then was released and became an
international celebrity due to running floral shops, paint stores, nightclubs,
paint stores, casinos, gas stations, and a men’s haberdashery and being a
man-about-town in Hollywood. In 1961 he
was convicted of tax evasion again and sent to Alcatraz, where another inmate
tried to kill him with a lead pipe. He
was released in 1972 and toured the country until he died in his sleep in
1976. That’s the true backstory, I
provide it so that you can compare it to the movie.
The movie takes place in 1949 – Mickey Cohen has become the
most powerful figure in the Los Angeles underworld. He has bought many police, and because of
this, it’s impossible to make charges stick.
The police chief has an upstanding un-buyable Eliot Ness type pull
together a squad of other un-buyable standup cops. The officer’s wife goes through the files
with him and they pull together a squad that includes a young hotshot who is familiar
with the gangster hangouts and lifestyles; an African American cop who has been
struggling to keep Cohen’s drugs out of his neighborhood; an early tech genius
(in a contemporary movie – he’d be the computer hacker); a wild west relic
gunslinger and his Mexican-American sidekick.
They leave their badges at home, and begin to take down Cohen’s
operations. The hotshot woos Cohen’s
girl – or dame – as the case may be in this movie. Eventually Cohen figures out who they are and
starts going after their families.
Eventually the dame witnesses Cohen killing someone, and agrees to
testify. The squad has to arrest Cohen,
which proves difficult because he has rented every room in a hotel, and
fortified it with his goons. The cops
break through the lines of goons, leading to a staircase scene that made me
look for a baby carriage. Eventually
Cohen makes a run for it, leading to an epic fistfight (remember, he was a
boxer) by a fountain, leading to his arrest.
Gangster Squard is directed by Ruben Fleischer, who will
direct the upcoming Zombieland 2, and previous to this had done 30 Minutes or
Less. It’s shot well, and has some zippy
action sequences. The dialogue choices
were a little strange, a lot of characters/actors were doing that old
gangster-style speak, “Yah palie, see?”
You know what I mean. Not
everyone is doing it, which really makes it stand out when someone does do
it. The movie has a pulpy – comic book
feel to it, the blood from all the gun fights is over the top. Kudos to the creators for pulling the movie
theater shoot ‘em up scene after the Aurora-Colorado tragedy.
The cast is good -
·
Sean Penn went through 3 hours of makeup every
morning to portray Mickey Cohen. If you
look up pictures of the real Mickey Cohen, he looks a little like him, only a
little. It makes me wonder if the three
hours of makeup was worth it. It is not
good, and is almost distracting. I also
feel like Penn is too much in this movie, over the top to the point of comical and
not really threatening.
·
Josh Brolin plays Sgt. John O’Mara and really,
this is his movie. Despite the amount of
Gosling in the commercials and trailers; this is a Brolin movie. And, he does a really good job. He’s completely believable as one of the last
good cops left in L.A., just back from the war, and weary of all the crime, and
the inability of the cops to eliminate the source of the crime. Mireille Enos plays
his wife, Connie, who helps put together the squad and is pregnant most of the
movie, to give O’Mara a reason to be concerned about his actions – making the
world a better place for his unborn child and all.
·
Ryan Gosling plays Sgt. Jerry Wooters, like O’Mara,
just back from the war. Wooters, however, is living it up a little bit more,
going to clubs, making friends with low-level gangsters and wooing Cohen’s
dame, Grace Faraday. I am not a Gosling
fan (I really don’t understand why women love him – maybe it’s the Notebook,
which I have never seen). He is very
stiff in this movie, but it sort of fits the character. He seems to be playing almost the same guy
from Crazy Stupid Love, which makes him come off as one-dimensional.
·
Emma Stone plays Grace Faraday, Cohen’s dame,
who is teaching him etiquette. She knows
he’s dangerous, but can’t find a way out.
Until of course, Wooters comes along to fall for her and convince her to
stand up to Cohen. Emma Stone is
amazing, but that doesn’t really come across in this movie – not her fault, the
character is written flat, and she does the best she can with what she’s got.
·
Nick Nolte plays Chief Parker, and is grumpy,
gruff, and determined – so, really Nick Nolte is playing himself a little bit,
just with better clothes. A reminder –
if you haven’t seen his performance in Warrior, check it out.
·
The wonderful Anthony Mackie plays Officer
Coleman Harris, and while he gets to dress almost as good as he did in The
Adjustment Bureau, he gets stuck with the lamest joke in the movie, the old “I
hate Burbank” joke, which – to be honest – plays in one city in this country,
and he says it a couple of times. Not
his fault, and he’s great at the rest of the scenes.
·
Robert Patrick plays a character that seems to
be an old Wild West gunslinger who started working for the LAPD once the Wild West
started disappearing. Officer Max
Kennard is the most accurate shot on the force, something that comes in handy
when firing your way through piles of low-level gangsters who have barricaded
their boss in a hotel. Michael Pena plays
Kennard’s partner/protégé Officer Navidad Ramirez. Pena is eager and fun, and has a great
relationship with Patrick’s character.
·
Giovanni Ribisi plays Officer Conway Keeler and
he’s fine in this. He gets stuck with
the character who has a family: wife and son.
Brolin’s character states right up front that none of the other guys
have family, so Keeler will have more to lose.
Keeler gives a speech about how he has to stop the bad guys again for
his family – it’s a speech that reminded me of Dead Meat in Hot Shots. As soon as he says it, you know he’s going to
be the first one eliminated.
·
Troy Garity plays Cohen’s sidekick Wrevock. He has no lines, but does have a creepy bad-eye
makeup – so, you know, visual gimmick.
He is not anywhere near Billy Drago’s Frank Nitti – but he tries. He’s very intimidating, until you remember
that he was in Barbershop.
The movie moves quickly, and like I said, has a comic –
pulpy feel. The problem is that I’m not
sure that’s what they wanted it to feel like.
Oh well, it’s worth checking out.6 out of 10. Gained points for Patrick – his character was just cool. Lost points for Penn’s performance, and makeup, and dialect. Gained points for the clothes, nifty. Lost points for the predictability.
Bonus Video 1: 1991’s Mobsters: Christian Slater, Patrick Dempsy, Richard Grieco, and Costas Mandylor attempt to bring sexy to gangsters.
Bonus Video 2: Hot
Shots…the character of Dead Meat cracks me up – and now I see that character in
almost every movie!
Bonus Video 3: Cast
Interviews!
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