Gangster Squad

Batutta

Batutta

Major Contributor
Great looking trailer, but I feel like I've seen this same exact movie about fifty times already. If it's done really well, then I guess that won't be a problem. Hopefully it's more like LA Confidential and less like Mobsters.

 
Still looks good. I can think of worse things to spend 10 bucks on but I'll probably wait for the dvd (not a big theatre goer). It'll be interesting to see what Sean Penn does with his role. He's usually quite believable. My brother will love it because it's old school gangsters with tommy guns. Could be good. I like the last scene, coming through the film screen. I've never seen that before.
 
despite all the period wardrobe, cars, settings. everything else from the way it was shot, color corrected and the music felt off by a mile. camera work was bad and a bit cluster-phobic.

some of the voices were either off or over the top.


side note: i thought that period was more about illegal alcohol and maybe corrupted cops and (murders?), were there a lot of drug trafficking, what kind of drugs?
 
Good points there now that you mention it. Yeah, the line '"We got all the whores and dope sewn up."" and they show bags of narcotics.

It was mostly if not all bootlegging in those days with Al Capone being most notorious.
I guess Capone ran bootlegging from early 1920s to 1931. According to wiki.

According to the movie wiki though:
From Wiki:
A chronicle of the LAPD's fight to keep East Coast Mafia types out of Los Angeles in the 1940s and 50s.
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After WW2 there was a probability there was a lot of morphine addiction among returning injured vets which presumably could have led to the cheaper herione persuits.
That , I think, would have been a small drug trade, but...I don't know my history that well. Possible.

Good points.
 
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Yeah LA Confidential dealt with Mickey Cohen and heroin in the 40's as well so I guess it was the most notorious drug in those days. Excellent film if you haven't seen it. It's a good thing they kept Mickey Cohen out of LA because we all know it's impossible to get drugs in Los Angeles now.
 
i can't seem to catch la confidential from the start(i keep watching the second half). but backgrounds and colors in this trailer are too busy and over the top(also distracting and don't separate the background from characters) compared to 40s-50s films, la noir, la confidential, Chinatown...etc.

and i don't like the idea of inglourious basterds in the same time period in LA and as cops. and over the top explosions, fire, car chases does not fit well in that time period. cars did not accelerate that fast or even have a moderate top speed to have a car chase, and it would overheat and brake down if you press it hard enough and it would run out of fuel fast enough. and brakes would not work and it would not turn at speeds, and tires,suspensions.....etc. i thought they had to seriously modify and constantly repair cars in that time period for alcohol trafficking.

i thought real drug trafficking and murders were in Miami in 70s-80s and then crack in poor neighborhoods.(that's what cocaine cowboys, scarface and the wire taught me)
 
You guys know this is from the guy who directed Zombieland, right? And... it's called Gangster Squad...

Haha, I was surprised at first, too, but I think the movie's going to be fairly tongue-in-cheek. Gosling seems to be doing a sly caricature of his own acting, and Penn is obviously going balls deep with that whole "Ba-BAM!" thing. This seems like it's going to be as much black comedy as action shoot-em-up drama.

I've gotta say, though, that last shot of Gosling racking the shotgun... the man can hold a stare.

-JMT

I do agree that it all looks weird. Seems flat or something. I wish people would learn how to make movies on Alexa that look as good as the HBO shows shot on it.
 
Michael Traven said:
You guys know this is from the guy who directed Zombieland, right? And... it's called Gangster Squad...

Haha, I was surprised at first, too, but I think the movie's going to be fairly tongue-in-cheek. Gosling seems to be doing a sly caricature of his own acting, and Penn is obviously going balls deep with that whole "Ba-BAM!" thing. This seems like it's going to be as much black comedy as action shoot-em-up drama.[/I]
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I'm not so sure it's going to be tongue-in-cheek. Nothing in the trailer gives me that impression at all.
 
Meh. With the exception of Emma Stone, who's never not awesome, I don't see anything unusually beckoning about that. Fedoras and Tommy guns are getting to be the new vampires.
 
Batutta said:
I'm not so sure it's going to be tongue-in-cheek. Nothing in the trailer gives me that impression at all.
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Really? Maybe I'm just being optimistic. I think what I'm seeing is a B-movie that knows it's going to be a B-movie, rather than trying to be melodramatic (nothing wrong with melodrama, either). Could be wrong, though - usually am! :)

-JMT
 
When I go to see Gangster Squad, I'm going to walk up to the concessions counter and say, "give me a large Coke... BAM! Then throw in a medium popcorn... Ba-BANG!!!"
 
Batutta said:
Reviews are pretty bad. Think I'll skip it.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gangster_squad_2012/
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Audience score (of 57,000+ votes) is pretty high, though. Sometimes reviewers just get a bee in their collective bonnet about a movie they obviously don't want anyone to like, while the audiences go ahead and like it anyway. The most recent one I can remember was This Means War, which while not Grand Illusion was certainly worth way, way more than the ~30% the reviewers gave it.
 
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