Alicia I love this movie so much

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

garthlotel The opening scene is so so bad, just pure cringe. Penn's acting is aiming for Pacino or Brando, but lands on a one dimensional baddie from Space Jam (or something of that ilk). The rest of the actors are the usual suspects from the underwhelming new breed of A listers (Stone, Gosling) who always seem to me like they are playing dress ups and impersonating their parents. Stone is lovely in B grade comedies but she doesn't have the acting chops for the bigger roles and bigger movies she keeps getting cast in. Gosling is a star, for sure, but he should stick to beefcake roles. As for the film, it misses the mark and is not worth the price of admission.

areatw I'm not sure what to think of 'Gangster Squad' to be honest. On one hand I was impressed with the production, particularly the action scenes which were enjoyable and very well made. Set in 1940s LA, the attention to detail was meticulous, from the cars to the clothes and even the wallpaper and furniture.On the other hand, I thought it was dull and repetitive. There's nothing special about 'Gangster Squad' that makes it stand out from other gangster movies, it's too generic. That said, I thought the cast did a decent enough job at making it somewhat interesting, especially Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen.Overall, 'Gangster Squad' isn't a bad movie, but it's not a particularly good one either. I enjoyed it to a certain extent, but largely thanks to the action scenes which only account for a fraction of the running time.

fwdixon My senses were assaulted by the miserable excuse for a film today.New words have to be invented to describe how mind-numbingly dreadful this piece of garbage is.There is no cliché or stereotype you can think of that is not present here.Professional lox, Josh Brolin, scowls throughout the movies in what he apparently thought was how a supposedly tough cop acted.The other actors failed to even meet the low standard set by Brolin.The exception is Sean Penn whose portrayal of Mickey Cohen was redolent of ham but leagues ahead of the rest of the performers.Although I had never seen "Gangster Squad" before, the script was so hackneyed and trite that I knew how every scene would end as soon as it started.They even stuck an Abbott & Costello gag in there ("Post Office is a kid's game", "Not the way I play it")Senseless and ludicrous gunfights abound here. One gunfight scene had a hood holding and firing a Thompson sub-machine gun in each hand without a bit of recoil from the very powerful gun.This film is unbelievably bad. Not in the so-bad-it's-good way either but in the dreadful I-can't-wait-for-it-to end way.There is not one redeeming quality to this film.Every copy of this film should be gathered up and burned.

dromasca A few days ago I have seen the brand new 'Black Mass' which is also a mob story made in Hollywood and enjoying the participation of a fine cast. I was not enthusiastic. 'Gangster Squad' directed by Ruben Fleischer has the few ingredients that I was missing in that film, which make the genre 'mob story inspired by real characters' much more enjoyable to me. It does start with 'inspired by a true story' (or 'true characters'), inserts the inevitable 'true crime' photos, and ends with the even more unavoidable text and pictures about the years spent in jail by the surviving bad guys, and the years happily spent fighting crime and raising kids by the good guys (those who survived, of course). In the middle it does better.The story of 'Gangster Squad' is set in the post-war LA, and this certainly helps as the place and the period seems to gather interests because of the classical 'noire' thrillers that it inspired followed by a number of successful movies (starting with The Maltese Falcon, of course, set and filmed in 1941). The despicable bad guy's name is Micky Cohen and his overtaking of the city could not (at least according to the script) be fought but by unconventional vigilante methods, because most of the police and judicial system was corrupted by hum. Find the right cops, motivated enough by having fought and survived WWII in order to build a world worth being lived by their kids, add the necessary dose of romantic, get a stunt master and a good choreographer for the fights and chases, and success is almost ensured.The story may be more remote from the truth than in 'Black Mass', the capabilities of the squad in fights and shooting may seem overrated, but at the end of the day the result was more enjoyable for me. It certainly helped to have on board such a fine team of actors, including Sean Penn as the ultimate bad guy, 'can't do wrong' Ryan Gosling, and beautiful Emma Stone who always seems to create around her a fascinating touch of mystery very appropriate in this movie. 'Gangster Squad' is a mob story that works and succeeds to be an entertaining film.