Coyote Cinema: Gangster Squad

[cyrano]

The trailers had led me to believe that this was going to be lots of attractive people doing attractive things. But give Sean Penn props, he got uglified right good for this gig. And there's plenty of blood and gore.

Which is, I think, one of the big problems that Gangster Club has; it doesn't know what kind of a movie it wants to be. Is it a gritty, bloody, crime drama? "Hooray for G-Men" propaganda? Pretty people doing impossible things while dressing well and looking cool? A pre-code revel in gangster excess? I have no problems with a little mix and match, but this is a muddle and it often jars.

The dialogue is spoken as if it's meant to be fresh, and cutting edge, which it might have been back in the forties when this takes place, but now I can't stomach it without at least a soupcon of irony.

And far too often, I would cock my head at the screen, furrow my brow and frown, and ask "Why the hell did you just do that?" And this is not just characters doing stupid things, which they might do, but I could roll with because their character is about as sharp as a water balloon. This is straight up non sequitur bullshit. Sometimes I could look at it and say "Oh, maybe because it looks cool" which is a valid character choice if we're currently in a 'pretty people/impossible things/looking cool' movie. But sometimes it just looked like random script grafting.

I was impressed here by Ryan Gosling; he displayed great charm, and an amazing lack of weight. I have seen him before, in a political drama with George Clooney, and he showed an ability to act, so I'm not exactly sure what happened here.

Now, I don't have much good to say about this film, but I didn't hate it. I enjoyed watching parts of it, even if I wouldn't do it again. The good news is, I really wanted to watch LA Confidential when I got home, but apparently I don't own it. So I'm going to go to bed instead. Two wags.