Slow Poke Movie Reviews: Gangster Squad

The Walrus Moose has fake news, but real movie reviews. This is one of those reviews.

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Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Gangster Squad could have been much more than what is presented to you. Granted, they had to re-shoot some scenes so as not to be distasteful to some real-life events that happened in an actual movie theater in Colorado. Still, the movie is tonally uneven and the characters are basically a mystical, magical bunch of mis-fits that come together to stop one of the Chicago crime bosses, Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, who is acting like this movie is his Academy Award chance) who believes that it is in his cards to take over Los Angeles from Nick Nolte, apparently not crooked, and his, apparently, crooked LAPD department.

From the get-go the film gives you a false sense of reality. The screen glows and the phrase "Inspired by True Events" pops up. Now this immediately does two things. One, for audience members who are gullible, this makes the movie basically all fact; two, for audience members not so gullible, this makes the movie not a total piece of crap, but it kind of gets there, because they have, need, must, embellish some scenes to make it an interesting movie. Begin uneven tones. The movie opens with a blonde 20-something waiting at an extremely clean looking LA Union Station. She is picked up by a well-groomed gentleman who probably asks her, "So, you wanna be a star, eh?" (to be read in the most lame 40's low-level, weasely gangster voice ever). Her reply is, of course, "Of course," and trouble ensues. Good thing Josh Brolin, a hardened veteran from World War II who is now a Sergeant in the LAPD, is waiting at the station for trouble like this to happen. Trouble ensues and it later reveals that Sgt. John O'Mara (Brolin) has basically taken down an entire brothel in LA, including showing flashback scenes of him kicking in doors to padlocked rooms and getting the drugged up women out of there before Molotov Cocktail-ing the place into flames. 

WHEW. That sounded cool. Right? To be fair, this scene was done a lot cooler in the first Taken, albiet he only took one girl to safety. (Wait, he did?) Well, he probably freed all of them, but he took the girl who had his daughter's incredibly ridiculous denim jacket.

Random Google Image from query "Gangsta Squad"

O'Mara is met by the only clean, repeat ONLY clean, ranking member of the LAPD Chief Parker (Nick Nolte) and asked to single handedly take back Los Angeles by using any means necessary. This begins a montage sequence where O'Mara's "no non-sense" wife is helping him hand-pick not the top-of-the-class detectives, but rather a bunch of mis-fits who have magic powers. No joke. We get Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) who is a ladies man and gets any girl he wants, because that's his power along with a Mickey Mouse voice. Next up is Officer Coleman Harris (played by Anthony Mackie) [I could have sworn they called him Lieutenant in the movie], who is the knife-throwing ace. We then have Officer Conway Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi) who is the nerd and tech ace of the crew. Next up is the old, quiet veteran and social reject Officer Max Kennard (T-1000, uh, I mean Robert Patrick). Why is he a social reject? Because he is the only person in the 40's/50's to think that Latino police offers are equal to everyone else. Who is the quiet, young rookie Latino officer? Perpetual good-guy Michael Pena who plays Officer Navidad Ramirez (Yes, Chrismas Ramirez, not I'm not trying to be mean. It's a direct translation). No lie though, Pena is awesome; just watch End of Watch. Got the list of characters down? Good. Because they, each, will only bring up their special skill once in the movie.

As characters go, we have incredibly noir style characters: annoying kid character who wants to shine your shoes, femme fatale character who wants to get away from the bad life and live a normal one, the pregnant wife who is at home...alone when shady stuff goes down who then goes off to be with her sister until her husband realizes that he matters to her more than this stupid, stupid war, wily veterans who give sage advice but claim "I was never here...now take these steaks, you band of hooligans". The list goes on.

As the movie progresses, you get wild montages of the high-stakes take downs of the helter skelter crew. Viewers get no sense of time in this movie, because everything seems to happen within the same few months rather than over years, as the timeline should indicate. Montages aside, the characters' three main actors lives are explored, and this deviates from a tighter, more serious movie. The movie doesn't have to explore these areas in-depth, because those characters introduced are impertinent to the rest of the context of the film. Increased stakes from the protagonists could be established just within the storyline itself. HBO's The Wire is an example of this. The characters in The Wire do have lives outside of the office, but only in glimpses. Rawls in the gay bar, Daniels on top of Rhonda, McNulty with any girl who is willing.

Tonally uneven is also the name of the game with the dialogue. Sean Penn is forced to say lines like "You're talking to God. So, you might as well swear to me." And, "You know the drill" and subsequently one of his thugs literally takes out a drill to kill a guy. Lastly, he's walking out of a car into a fine restaurant and the then-paparazzi ask him questions to only have him reply with a boyish pose and smile for the camera and lame one-line, almost zingers like "Eh!" and "Oh!" This contrasts heavily with the often serious times that Penn has to quietly hold in his seething anger as he talks with another crime boss in LA. Or, when he goes crazy about how a band of hooligans are messing up his operations. 

Random Google Image from query "Gangsta Squad"

There's a lot to nitpick with in this movie, and I would go on, but it's a nice day and I want to be outside. Overall, Gangster Squad is just a "meh" kind of movie. It's not serious. It's not goofy. It's too serious mixed with too goofy. So, it has kind of an identity crisis. The casting sort of indicates this with Nolte, Brolin, Gosling (sort of), Mackey and you could even put in Emma Stone. What does this movie's identity want to be? I laughed out loud by myself at some parts and lines of the movie when other audience members sat, engrossed by what was presented on the screen. A lot of "WTF" moments for me, whereas others might have seen it as tonally serious or just what you wanted from a cop movie. 

Overall, I'm not dismissing what the real "Gangster Squad" of the 40's and 50's did or did not do, but this portrayal is just a gross misrepresentation of all characters, that I just can't recommend it without telling people that there are much better LA noir-style movies out there. (I'm talking about you, L.A. Confidential).

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TL;DR

Gangster Squad is a goofball movie. Think "Fox Force Five" but on the big screen and with a bunch of guys. 

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Highs: Laughs

Lows: A lot of movie tropes, including the one guy who has everything to live for and wants to get out of the business, then dies an unflattering death that spurs the third act of the movie. "MENDOZAAAAA!!!!" 

Rating: If it's on TNT, USA or some other cable station in the future, just watch it there, so you can do laundry while watching it.

Walrus Moose Quickies

New York, NY - Beyonce has announced that she will present herself with the first annual "Most Influential Woman of the Year Award 2013-2018". Costs will be $10,000 per plate for the back of the Ritz Carlton Ballroom, and upwards of over $50,000 per plate to sit near the honoree. All proceeds will go to benefit the Carter Family bank account.

Bakersfield, CA - Oil tycoon Samuelson L. Jacksen has finally decided to buy the rights to actor Samuel L. Jackson's name, because he hates being asked if he enjoyed making "Snakes on a Plane". When asked about the movie and details of the buyout, Mr. Jacksen said, "Ain't nobody got time fo' dat."

Oklahoma City, OK - A dark day in Oklahoma City today, as residents of the city joined to mourn the loss of the Clydesdale horse featured prominently in the Superbowl XLVII ad. The horse has died of natural causes and at the request of its owners, the horse will be sent to the Elmer's Glue factory in Denton, Texas for all children to enjoy when making crafts.

Miami, FL - LeBron James once again claims that he is not going bald, and will not endorse Rogaine. His agent has vehemently defended Mr. James by stating, "LeBron isn't going bald. Period. Did you get the Period? I want that emphasized when I read it in the papers tomorrow. Anyway, Mr. James is simply trying to start his fashion line with headband accessories that you wear slightly above your hairline."

Slow Poke Movie Reviews: Django Unchained

The Walrus Moose has fake news, but real movie reviews. This is one of those reviews.

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Quentin Tarantino has made ridiculous films in the past, and he will most likely continue to make them in the future. Not saying that his films aren't entertaining, just saying that they're ridiculous in their content and embellishment of past film genres or historical time periods. "Django" is one of the films that I wasn't sure what the hell to think after seeing it. I've seen Tarantino's crazy blood before in films like "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and "Kill Bill Vol. 2":; I've heard witty dialogue before in "Pulp Fiction"; I've seen historical bends in "Inglourious Basterds." Tarantino blends all of these into "Django Unchained," but the film just didn't hit me as a hit. It felt more like a director just putting a bunch of stuff he loves on the screen and expects that viewers who liked his stuff are going to give him a pass and will make the requisite connections that turn this movie into a genius film. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take a step back there, cowboy. More on this in a few paragraphs.

Google Image Search for "Django Unchained script"

Meet Dr. King Schultz, played very smoothly by Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz, a former dentist in his home country of Germany, but is now a bounty hunter in late 1850's Antebellum American South. His quest to find a trio of outlaw brothers leads him to fortuitously encounter the film's title character Django (Jaime Foxx). The film's early encounter with these two characters basically gives you an idea about how bloody the film will be moving forward. How crazy messy is the blood violence? Well, if horses had councils about film portrayals showing indignities in movie horse deaths they would likely have sued The Godfather and Django Unchained. Anyhow, Schultz teaches Django the ropes of the bounty hunting business and it's all about getting good at your craft during the final parts of the first act. Admittedly, the first act is pretty cool. The two characters are learning from one another and they grow close enough to have Django reveal that his wife, Broomhilda, was taken by the outlaw trio previously mentioned. Yep, Broomhilda. When Dr. Schultz (being of German origin) describes the fairy tale of Broomhilda and her savior's quest to go through a fire-breathing dragon and Hell fire to Django the plot thickens and if the film had continued with this notion (which it kind of does) then I would have been cool with that.

However, we moved into the second and third acts where a lot of racial inequalities come into play more heavily, and the movie (kind of) moves away from a fairy tale story of a hero trying to save his wife and into a movie (sort of) telling me that each plantation owner is bad that Django is here to bring swift justice. And justice he brings. Bang, blam, boom, kaboom. I have no problem with this either, surprisingly. What would a Tarantino film be without gratuitous bloodlust and gallons of blood, right? The second act kind of brings it, but the third act definitely brings it, despite a lot of sitting on horses and around dining table.

The reason I keep writing things like (sort of) and (kind of) is due to the movie really throwing a lot of ideas on the screen and it's difficult to discern what message, if any, I should take away. Is this all a farce playing on a shameful American past (sort of), is it an honest portrayal of the America's shameful actions regarding slavery (kind of), is it a movie that a viewer is not supposed to take anything away from except enjoy him or herself (yeah, sure). What is it? Why is the movie so long? Where was the editor to say "You know what, fuck this shit. This is stupid and I need to really get a handle on this before it all gets out of whack"? This is a reason for Director's Cuts on DVD extras, or Extended Versions. Where the hell do some of these character arcs come from? What the hell is wrong with Tarantino and his selection of music (old west style homages, Rick Ross, John Legend, 2pac, Johnny Cash)? It's very tonal uneven. How can I appreciate something if it's just a bunch of stuff thrown onto a screen?

Google Image Search for "Django Unchained Drawing"

So, I go back to the question posed earlier: are viewers supposed to just give Tarantino a pass and make their own Cloud Atlas connections to these characters to help make sense of it all? That's stupid and that's a waste of anyone's brain power, if this is the case.

As far as blood violence goes...dude, I get it -- you love showing violence on screen. I love what's been done before with folks like the Crazy 88 at the Charlie Brown club in Kill Bill Vol. 1 getting decapitated, losing limbs and bleeding like fountains. I laughed my ass off when Marvin gets hit in the head because Jules "must have gone over a bump, or something" in Pulp Fiction. But when I'm seeing the same dead bodies get repeatedly shot with the same slow motion effects done twice or thrice in the same scene, then it all gets old.

As far as acting goes, Leonardo DiCaprio is fantastic, Samuel L. Jackson is great, and Christoph Waltz does a mighty fine job! Everyone else is kind just average.

Overall, Tarantino's film just feels like the director saying "Hey, look at me and look what I can do. Take that mainstream studios! No one can tell me to reign it in at all, because everyone loves my movies!" I wasn't sure how to feel at the end when all things were said and done, and I kind of still don't. I didn't know whether I should laugh, feel disgusted, or just wash it all away. And, don't get me wrong, it's not a bad movie at all, I just feel it has a ton of ideas that aren't as polished as some of Tarantino's other films.

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TL;DR - If you like watching your niece/nephew/son/daughter's elementary school Christmas pageant complete with terrible singing, some skits, and at a run time of an hour that feels more like two hours, then you'll probably really enjoy Django. Why? Because you love your niece/nephew/son or daughter and no matter what they do or however long they might do something for, it doesn't make you feel indifferent about this love.

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Highs: Some very great performances from DiCaprio, Jackson and Waltz.

Lows: Am I supposed to laugh at this scene? Uh...dude, you're losing me here a bit.

Rating: See it on Netflix, so you can turn it off if it doesn't suit you.