Review: ‘Gangster Squad’ is Fun, Flashy, Forgettable Entertainment

Gangster Squad, the latest from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, is right at home behind the Warner Brothers logo. At times, the Los Angeles mobster movie feels like a cartoon, riding the line of ridiculousness between The Untouchables and Dick Tracy with an almost blatant eye for cliche and plot-structuring imitation. Don’t expect much of real life to slip into its story. That’s like The Untouchables, as well, the film Gangster Squad most emulates. It’s surface-level fun that gets bogged down with absurdity, flashy to the point of ostentation, and that’s not even including Sean Penn’s make-up. Penn plays real-life mobster Mickey Cohen, a force in the bustling Los Angeles of 1949. Cohen’s brashness and knack for tasteless violence has made him a threat to even the side of the Los Angeles Police Department that feels organized crime is a constant that needs to be controlled rather than stamped out, but with …