I can only say one good thing about this film: Sean Penn gives an energized performance that is entertaining to watch. While his character is not very developed, his performance keeps this film from being an absolute train wreck.Okay, now that I have gotten the one and only positive aspect of this film out of the way, I'm going to completely rip this film to shreds. Gangster Squad attempts to have that vintage visual style, but it failed terribly at doing so. Instead, it was a very cartoon-like environment, and even the action was horrible. Poorly choreographed fight scenes, video-game-esque shootings, and extremely mediocre car chase scenes come together to make potentially this year's worst film (Yes, I realize it is only January, but my God this was so bad, I doubt I'll see anything worse this year). I usually analyze most of the characters in my reviews but I am safe in using a blanket statement saying that all the characters were poorly developed and uninteresting. I didn't care what happened to the characters, and that's just a prime example of bad writing. The dialogue was anything but interesting, and the Ryan Gosling/Emma Stone relationship was fantastically cliched. Not to mention the entire film in general was a total cookie-cutter of gangster movies.
If you've never watched a gangster film, you could mildly enjoy this film. But after seeing some of the best of gangster films, Gangster Squad is a complete and utter disappointment; even worse than I expected it to be after seeing the negative reviews pour in. Gangster Squad is slick in style, but lacks any real substance. The only thing that could make this worse is if they make a sequel. Cross your fingers and hope they don't, for the sake of all that is good and decent.
MY RATING:
1 out of 5
-Kevin A. Millward
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