**NOTE**
Hey guys, thanks for coming to my blog to read this, my first written review in over a year. In the beginning of 2012, I tried branching out into video reviews and uploaded several to YouTube, but complications with my workplace meant I had to stop reviewing until I left there late last year. Now I'm currently struggling in creating my own website, rather than using this blog to share my opinions on this year's film releases. But since it's taking me a while to get any traction with it, I felt like I could still write my reviews on the blog until the site's ready. So here we are.
Please enjoy, and I apologise for how late these reviews are, but I've got a few stored up that I'd like to share.
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as empty as Nick Nolte's fridge...
My experience with
gangster films hasn't been vast. Apart from the classic mafia films
such as The Godfather trilogy and Goodfellas, I'm not that well
versed.
'Cops vs. Gangsters' films were introduced to me by L.A.
Confidential, a slick and stylish film noir that showed me how a
crime film could look visually stunning amazing whilst still having
an interesting mystery running throughout. This first taste led me
to gritty crime dramas such as Roman Polanski's Chinatown which
helped propel Jack Nicholson to limelight, and the true story of the
takedown of Al Capone in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables.
As I watched these
films, I began to notice similarities and difference between certain
types of gangster movies. Whilst Chinatown and The Untouchables
focussed on the gritty crime and injustice underpinning the
storyline, conversely LA Confidential centred on portraying the
atmosphere, fashion and style of 1950s Los Angeles, as it was not
really based in reality but of a fictionalised LA, found in pulp
fiction novels. In between these styles of gangster films, we find
one of 2013's earliest releases: Gangster Squad.
Set in the late 1940s,
the men of Los Angeles are still recovering from the end of the
Second World War. Honest policemen like Josh Brolin and
walking-smoulder Ryan Gosling are trying to reacquaint themselves
back to the homeland and the ex-boxer-turned-gangster Mickey Cohen,
played by Sean Penn, is slowly establishing a crime syndicate in Los
Angeles.
To fight him, the
gigantic bear of a police chief, played by Nick Nolte, puts Brolin in
charge of an elite crime-fighting squad with the objective of taking
Cohen's empire down. Think The Avengers but with tommy-guns and
coquettishly-worn trilby hats. They start using violent means to
fulfil their task, but obviously Cohen doesn't take kindly to anybody
getting in his way.
Like I mentioned earlier,
the way I see gangster films is that they are either the gritty 'law
must survive' films, or the suave 'good guys wear trilbys, bad guys
wear pinstripe suits'. The problem with Gangster Squad is that it
was trying to be LA Untouchafellas... or Good China Confidential. It
wants to showcase the tension and anguish of the reality of 1950s
Los Angeles, but also show how classy and sophisticated it was at the
time.
That might be admirable
of the relatively-new director Ruben Fleischer, but unfortunately the
experiment doesn't seem to work; the film juxtaposes the real-life
scenario of underdog cops fighting for what's right against a
maniacal gangster's empire, whilst all the time having a glossy sheen
of a fictional Los Angeles. A scene where Ryan Gosling swoons and
smoulders across his screen, entirely for the ladies in the audience,
is followed by a torture sequence where Penn kills an informant with
a drill into his forehead. Trust me, no amount of Gosling in your
film will keep your women smiling after a grisly scene like that.
The film doesn't give
these real-life heroes any real screen time or interaction to
establish their characters fully, only giving brief clichéd glimpses
into their home and work lives and leaving the rest up to you.
Brolin's got a wife who's having a baby and waits up all night
worried about when he will come home, Gosling is just a womaniser who
foolishly sets his sights on the local kingpin's girlfriend, played
by the wasted talent of Emma Stone, the ever-supporting Giovanni
Ribisi has a wife and kids therefore doesn't want to get involved
with such people, but does anyway because of what's right. It
desperately lacks inspiration.
If your aim is to watch
an visually interesting and still mysterious crime film, there are
much better examples out there then Gangster Squad. Usually anything
from Al Pacino or Robert de Niro's early film career. So please
stick to those fantastic films and don't waste your money with
Gangster Squad. It'll leave you feeling as empty and drained as Nick
Nolte's fridge.
Rating - 3/10
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