Driving by his deep will of getting rid of such corruption and clear Los Angeles from criminals and gang, John Omara, a former strong honest warrior, who gets annoyed from the awful crimes of Micky Cohen, a rude gangster, team up with a group of cops to take him down, the thing that brings terrible for him.
It might sound like a stretch, imagining Penn playing that intense, indiosyncratic a villain. But the lauded, veteran actor pulls a left hook, then a right, and after a wild bodyshot at the tail end of the film, you see the true mania behind his eyes.
Gosling's smirk conveys a contempt for the material rivaled only by my own.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
January 11, 2013
Despite a cast of gifted actors, lush 1940s production design and suave costumes, it's bereft of inspiration, plowing familiar terrain past the point of tedium to impatience.
Okay, so maybe nobody expected Gangster Squad to be in the league of, say, Chinatown or L.A. Confidential, but even on the level of pure, bullet-spattered fun, this thing is so vaporous that it slides out of memory even while you're watching it.
