Mickey Cohen is building his underworld empire in the alleys and bordellos of post-war L.A. It's an inferior Untouchables knock-off and proud of it. Despite the talent of the cast, Gangster Squad isn't a "prestige" motion picture and its release date shift from September 7 to January 11 didn't damage its nonexistent Oscar chances. The good guys are stolid, sturdy men - paragons of virtue up against a feral villain who is so vile that even the notorious Chicago mob can't stand against him. Sean Penn, playing real-life mobster Mickey Cohen, hams it up expertly, channeling Al Pacino's Tony Montana without the accent. It's chock-full of "guilty pleasure" moments. Steeped in blood, gore, and violence, Gangster Squad delivers what fans of the gangster genre expect from a movie of this sort. Gangster Squad is an unashamedly pulpy thriller that borders at times on an exploitation flick but its determination to follow The Untouchables' template (without the benefit of a David Mamet script) makes it a little too predictable to be memorable. There's no Battleship Potemkin homage, but there is a nod to Sunset Blvd. How else to explain the kinship that exists between Fleischer's latest, Gangster Squad, and De Palma's classic The Untouchables (with a little Scarface thrown in for good measure)? The similarities go beyond the requisite plot points that exist in all gangland stories Gangster Squad unspools almost like a remake of The Untouchables, albeit with a souped-up ending and a relocation from Prohibition Era Chicago to post-WWII Los Angeles. It illustrates the cyclical nature of humanity and that’s what makes Colors worthwhile watching.There seems to be little doubt that Ruben Fleischer, the director behind the well-received Zombieland and the less well-received 30 Minutes or Less, is a Brian De Palma fan. There’s a lot of similarities between Hooper’s movie and this real-life upheaval. You can’t watch Colors in 2015 without thinking of the recent events in Ferguson, Ohio. You can see him pushing the boundaries but not pushing them too far.
There’s a hunger to his directing of Colors that shows a man with something to prove. The duo have good chemistry and Penn’s infamous ‘80s rage is present behind his eyes throughout his performance.ĭennis Hopper’s helped create the rebel nature of 1970s cinema with Easy Rider but drugs and misfires like The Last Movie and Out The Blue saw his stock dip in Hollywood.
#GANGLAND MOVIE SEAN PENN PRO#
The heart of the movie is the relationships between Penn’s young buck cop and Duvall’s seasoned pro as they navigate the tricky world of gang culture. Michael Schiffer’s script delivers enough hard-edged nuggets to make it standout from the glut of buddy movies that peppered the ‘80s in the wake of 48 Hours. Sean Penn and Robert Duvall play patrol car partners working the tough gangland neighbourhoods of Los Angeles as the temperature rises during a street war.Ĭolors manages to be a film that manages to have an edgy independent sensibility and be a generic Hollywood fare all at once. Dennis Hopper’s 1988 cop drama Colors might be a product of its time (the Rap soundtrack dates it) but it’s also pretty relevant for what’s happening today with the police force across the US.
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