These types of movies normally don’t interest me. The trailer for Gangster Squad sold me though. I really want to see this movie. It’s a 1940’s crime film. Old mafia/gangster period pieces are nothing new, but they put a unique twist on this one. I always felt movies like Godfather, Casino, and Goodfellas romanticize the idea of being a bad guy and a criminal. This movie comes from the other side of the law. Sean Penn plays Mickey Cohen, a bad ass mafia guy who is dominating Los Angeles at the time. He’s running the town and the law is in his pocket. Enter what looks to be a vigilante group fed up with the bullshit. The cast has Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Nick Nolte, and like a dozen other familiar and capable performers. It’s a loaded cast, an old school mafia storyline, and it’s going to do quite well for itself if the promo for it is anything like this trailer. Not since “Three Amigos” have I seen people go gangsta on the gangsters. Cool!
