Gangster Squad (2013) review

2013 has so far, definitely been a disappointment for me. Most films were either horrid or decent, at best. 'Gangster Squad' is possibly the best 2013 film, up until now that I myself have seen. It features some great performances, good story and characters and has some fantastic scenes of intense action.

John O'Mara is a new police officer and becomes a bold man. He is then considered for a job to go undercover, with the aid of other police officers, to wipe out Mickey Cohan, one of the greatest criminals of the time. The story is straight forward and whilst this may seem just an action film, it may not be. 



My initial impression of the film was that it would simply be an action feast but the film actually offers quite more than just that. Of course, every film has a romance plot and whilst it may feel forced, it actually strengthens Ryan Gosling's character. His relationship with Emma Stone's character is possibly, the emotional segment of the film. It may definitely not be straight up emotion, but this it he element of the story that helps us truly understand what a horrible world this is and exactly how evil Cohen is, who has Stone's character by his side. Stone, gives a good performance although nothing special comes out of it as done Ryan Gosling. The rest of the cast mainly do a good job but one of my favorites of the film, is Robert Patrick. The T-1000 from T2 plays a gunslinger and the "badass" of the police officers. His character was pretty cool! The best acting in the film is definitely, Sean Penn who delivers a great performance. This is true, but the way that the film is written makes the film too heavily resemble Francis Ford Coppola's epic masterpiece, The Godfather. Penn's character heavily resembles Al Pacino's Michael Corleone and even a scene in the film involving a shoot out from a car into a bedroom heavily resembles the iconic sequence from The Godfather Part II. 


The writing is rather good at times but rather poor at other times. The fact that the film doesn't truly deliver much new to the film and instead relies heavily on other crime films such as The Godfather make this a rather big disappointment. That said, I love crime films so this was still a relatively enjoyable film experience. The film resembles The Godfather even more due to the fact that the cinematograhy and lighting heavily resembles The Godfather. I myself wasn't too frustrated with this, but I definitely enjoyed Gangster Squad. Often definitely suffering from poor writing and poor directing, including plenty of unnecessary scenes and conversations that attempt to match those of Pulp Fiction, Gangster Squad is nevertheles a fascinating story with good characters and some extremely intense and awesome action sequences at the end. 

Grade- 8/10 
 Definitely flawed but thoroughly enjoyable!