Gangster Squad (1 Viewer)

Is Thurday at 10pm the new opening date for movies? Either way, I wasn't planning on checking this out but the movie I went to see got bumped for the new releases so I decided to go with this thing. If you're expecting L.A. CONFIDENTIAL or some sort of Oscar-worthy film then you're going to be disappointed because this here is more of an exploitation picture mixed with a 50's noir. The film is actually pretty damn violent and especially during the opening ten-minutes, which will remind some of a SAW movie. Whereas there aren't any real brains in this thing, it seems the director just wanted everyone to have fun and not have to worry about which actor got the naked gold man. The performances are "good" but I'd say none of them are among the actor's best work. It really does seem that all of them are just on auto pilot having fun with a lesser picture. Robert Patrick is really great in his small role. Brolin is perfect for someone to go around kicking ass. Penn, one of my favorite actors, is so over-the-top that it almost seems like he's playing Al Pacino going over-the-top. It's a fun performance though. The setting and look are just fine and there's no question that the final ten-minutes are going to have people cheering. The now controversial theater shooting sequence is certainly gone here so who knows if we'll ever see that. Either way, :star::star::star: out of four as long as you don't come in expecting anything serious.

Sorry, I've see the trailer dor this movie everytime I've been to a movie in the last month, and I feel like I've seen the whole thing already -- and looks like a bad remake of "Dick Tracy"

It's funny you mention the trailer because the theater thing was the only good scene in it. When Warner pushed it back it somewhat told me that perhaps this wasn't going to be a "great" movie. I wondered if they would really push it back if it was great enough to get some sort of Oscar attention. It seems during the production that this was supposed to be some sort of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL for this decade. It's more like a bad mix of noir, 70's exploitation and SCARFACE. Perhaps a wannabe Tarantino that fell down the ugly tree. I think a lot of people are going to be turned off by the violence but those just wanting a violent mess should enjoy it. There were only about twenty people in the screening (ZERO and HAUNTED had more) but most seemed to enjoy it after they got over the shock that they weren't getting something else. Several people afterwards mentioned that they walked into it expecting more but at least got entertained by other aspects.

Tis was pushed to now because I'm pretty sure this had a scene of the gangsters shooting a crowd in a movie theater. The trailers hit just around thetimeofthe shooting in the Batman movie. I'm guessing the scene was removed.

TonyD said:

Tis was pushed to now because I'm pretty sure this had a scene of the gangsters shooting a crowd in a movie theater. The trailers hit just around thetimeofthe shooting in the Batman movie. I'm guessing the scene was removed.

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Yeah, I believe they had to shoot some new material to patch cutting out the movie theater shooting scene. My guess is that the new scene is the one where but that's just a guess. I wanted to see a James Ellroy novel on film or a movie that could have blended in somewhat with other pictures of the film noir era but that wasn't the movie that they were making. They made a modern movie that's set in 1949. Overall, I'd say that it had a great cast, was an OK movie and is worth a rental.

We went in with very low expectations and found a quickly paced and enjoyable movie. Violent and bloody, absolutely adult, but there wasn't a time I couldn't follow what was happening or I wanted to look at my watch. Almost the entire movie is telegraphed from the beginning with terribly obvious, one note characters. Ironically, the only one I had a problem with here was Emma Stone. She doesn't feel old enough to me to be in this movie...and she seemed too old in Easy A. I don't need to see Gangster Squad again. However, I'm not sorry I saw it.