An uncommon collection of acting talent (Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Josh Brolin, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi) sinks with Gangster Squad, a mob movie based on Mickey Cohn’s 1949 sojourn in LA. Because director Reuben Fleischer recently made Zombieland, which I loved for its original approach to zombie movies. Unfortunately, there is not one original minute in Gangster Squad. If you enjoy movie violence, avoid Gangster Squad and see Django Unchained a second time.
Sean Penn plays Mickey Cohn – or maybe he’s playing Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas. What made Pesci’s volatile character so menacing (and unforgettable) was that you never knew when he would irrationally erupt and do something unthinkably horrible. But Penn’s character is totally predictable – he always does the worst thing imaginable so there’s no menace; it’s like watching Michael Vick train dogs – just gruesome.
Gangster Squad was slated for a September 7, 2012, release, but it contained a scene of a mass shooting inside a movie theater; the Aurora, Colorado, tragedy made the distributor skittish, so another scene was shot to replace it, delaying the release for four months.