Gangster Squad (Ruben Fleischer, 2013) - 3 stars

Gangster squad is Ruben Fleischer’s follow-up to his 2009 debut Zombieland. Set in the late 1940s, it follows the rise and fall of gangster Mickey Cohen, and the group of soldiers-turned-cops-turned-soldiers who brought him down.

Anyone who saw Fleischer’s previous film would be expecting the same levels of visual stylization and gore from his latest offering. And they would be rewarded so. With more slow motion than a sports replay, and a man being torn in half barely sixty seconds in, the audience soon learns what they’re getting themselves into. It is a glossy, if not over simplified vignette of post-war Los Angeles, a fact that we are seemingly never allowed to forget. With almost every character at one point quipping ‘I thought the war was supposed to be over,’ the film does not hesitate in using the past of characters to egg them on in their turf war against Sean Penn’s aging boxer-turned-mob boss.

The ‘Gangster Squad’ (whose name is presented to us in one of the film’s more cheesy sequences) consists of all the stereotypical players: a veteran sharp shooter (Robert Patrick), the young eager sidekick with room for improvement (Michael Peña), the sensitive soul (Ryan Gosling) and, of course, the brains of the bunch (Giovanni Ribisi). Their outfit is fronted by Josh Brolin playing the hotheaded leader of the pack, whose sense of duty allows for the typical family threatening moments.

Clearly, the film is full of clichés. The bad guys almost seem like farcical henchmen straight from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Robert Zemeckis, 1988) and Sean Penn’s Mickey Cohen, at times, seems like a shallow comic book villain, the likes of which we would expect to see fighting the Green Hornet, not a group of hardened LA cops. The plot points and twists are as predictable as possible, and if you still can’t follow it, the dialogue spoon feeds you exposition to the point of being bloated, but there is still something within the film that pulls you along. It is a hugely fun experience, even if it doesn’t tread new ground. The impressive ensemble, on the whole, keeps it afloat also. Penn and Brolin are on top form, with a great supporting cast, also including Nick Nolte and Anthony Mackie, but unfortunately some of the other key players flag slightly. As a Ryan Gosling fan, this is difficult to say, but it feels like just another easy role for him to slip into; the young emotional tough guy who is willing to do anything for the girl, and similarly for Emma Stone playing his lazily-written not-quite femme fatale Gracy.

The fundamental issue with the film is one we see too often in the current movie climate: It is not sure of its target demographic. On the one hand, it feels like another Dick Tracy screen adaptation, made for children and filled with amusing caricature bad guys and a simplistic story structure, but it then fills itself with f-bombs (and worse) and ultra-violence, really pushing the boundaries of its 15 certificate. The result is a hugely enjoyable but all too simple to watch, and ultimately confused, action movie. Movie detectives beware: do as Brolin tells you to. Leave your badge at home and simply allow the gloss and violence to wash over you.