Review by Matt Finley
Going into GANGSTER SQUAD, I was
worried that my almost total lack of knowledge surrounding famed
Brooklyn mobster Mickey Cohen and his bloody westward pilgrimage that
placed 1940s Los Angeles under mob control might temper the viewing
experience. Luckily, I could’ve missed every second gunfight and
still kept up.
Ruben Fleischer’s (ZOMBIELAND)
slick, gaudy shoot ‘em up is a huge, dumb, violent pulp comic of a
film. Anyone eager for the dark intricacies and moral culs de sac of
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL will find themselves hemorrhaging more
expectation than the baddies do blood. Set your sights on SIN
CITY, minus the personality, or DICK TRACY with a digital
sheen (come to think of it, Sean Penn’s squinty, snarling Cohen
would look right at home between Flattop and Mumbles).
