'Gangster Squad'

Ruben Fleischer's already proven his ability to gleefully play with extreme violence in Zombieland, so it seems it would only be a matter of time before he would turn to the potentially most violent period in American history, namely post-war LA.

Gangster Squad opens with the typical noir voice-over, here in the form of some such nonsense about badges men wear and how it defines them. It's that age-old American question dating back to the pioneers of who 'owns' a town. The answer is always the same: the wrong guy. Here, in 1949 LA it's Mickey Cohen, former boxer turned Jewish mobster whose physique resembles a squashed pit bull while his behaviour is not of much better quality. Cohen's got the whole town in his pocket and after getting rid of, whatchamacallit, his mobster superior Dragna, Cohen runs the show and there's not much anyone can do about it, especially with most of the police force on Cohen's payroll, unless one does it off the books that is. Which is exactly what police chief Parker, one old-school bastard and only incorruptible in the force proposes to Sgt. John O'Mara, war hero and straight shooter all round. Nolte's voice here sounds as raspy as wrapping a glass vase in tin foil and throwing it down some stairs, it's downright scary to watch at times.

O'Mara, with the help of his wife, The Killing's wonderful Mireille Enos, sets up a small squad with which to go after Cohen and his operation. The team consists of a nice bouquet of noir stereotypes, you've got the drunk cynic who has to be convinced by a dramatic event to do what's right, the crazy gun nut, the young tag-along, the street-wise uniform and the bespectacled intelligence genius. Leaving the badge at home, armed with righteous intentions, but never able to be accused of subtlety, O'Mara and his team hit Cohen where it hurts. Follows a visual feast of violence. Plot-wise this is pretty much it, with a sub-romance between Sgt. Jerry Wooters and Cohen's girlfriend Grace Faraday.

Remember that time when we were all able to sit in the cinema or in front of the TV on Sunday afternoons and just have fun, a kind of childhood ideal situation, uncritical and unbridled joy in film, no matter how good or how bad? Well, this is it people! There is nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing subtle or refined about Fleisher's film. The clichés are milked for all it's worth and the characters almost seem like stereotypes of stereotypes, if you know what I mean. Nevertheless, it has been a long time since I was so thoroughly entertained for two hours. Gangster Squad will never be a classic, I'm not even sure it's a particularly 'good' film, but the thing is, it doesn't set out to be. It never pretends to be anything else than what it is, namely a good time in cinema. It's a sensationalistic vehicle, handsome in all its artificial glory, funny, though never witty, while the performances are good enough to save the one-liners from unbearably cringe-worthy to delightfully cheesy.

If you're looking for real noir or a Scorcese-like gangster thriller, you will inevitably end up wanting to hurl your cheesy nachos (Yes! I'm talking to you, you smelly pseudo-film buff in Metallica shirt and fuzzy facial pubes in the third row) at the screen. Do us all a favour and put Gangster Squad in context. This is pop-art cinema at its best, a shallow pastiche and I mean this in the best possible way. Cinema for the eyes, not the brain.

Anyway, it wouldn't be a critique without the criticising part now, would it? Surprisingly here it comes in the shape of Sean Penn's performance. It remains uncertain whether Penn's Cohen is supposed to be a spoof of the gangster or a chilling rendition of the alleged real-life lunacy of one Mickey Cohen. As it is, Penn's performance shifts uneasily between frightening intensity and a strange goofing around. I'm not even going to start on the deformed facial implants he wears and which seem to move throughout the course of the film. Or maybe it's got to do with the fact that we’re not used in seeing the method actor in an entertainment blockbuster of this scale. 

Josh Brolin is the one thing that saves his character from incredulous huffing on the audience's part, as he infuses O'Mara with a believability that is hard to explain, but has to do with the physicality of his performance. His body language tells you without the slightest doubt that this guy does believe in the black-and-white moral code he has created for himself. When Keeler questions their actions as the difference between cop and gangster vanishes, O'Mara seems downright taken aback.

Gosling plays Wooter with what he hopes is the suave laconic irony of a Kevin Spacey and even though Wooter has some of the best lines of the film, there is only one Spacey and Gosling's high pitched voice does not help his virility. Nevertheless, Gosling delivers a solid performance and especially stands out in the combined scenes with Stone, who plays the femme fatale with a sultriness which has mostly to do with her voice. Unfortunately the verbal pin ball dialogue between the femme fatale and the anti-hero, the life-blood of all noir, falls just short of witticism here. There is a lot of potential left unexplored in the Grace character, as Stone's screen time is slightly too limited and there is no sassy boldness or any sense of real danger to this dame, apart from the one inherent in the very idea of messing with a mobster's girl.

Michael Pena, Robert Patrick and Giovanni Ribisi are all underused in terms of their potential talent for that matter, nevertheless, quality lies in the detail, and all the performances are a joy to watch.

There has been quite a strong negative reaction to Dion Beebe's digital cinematography. Ironically, the very noir period was all about glitzy shallowness and the beginning of the materialistic age with the coming of the 1950s. Let's not forget that noir has always been a style rather than genre. If they would have had the digital means back then, I guess, they would have. The shoot-out in the lobby with the Christmas tree at the end is a thing of sheer beauty. Why Fleischer and Beebe felt the need to up things a little digitally in the fight scene at the end I'll never understand as it only disturbs the smooth sleekness of the visuals in general.

Gangster Squad is a swanky feast for the eyes. Its overblown silliness, both visually and thematically are a joy to watch, if that is your cup of tea. There's a comic-book feel pervading the film and, yes, the violence is glorified and stylish, but , come on!, this is pure entertainment as the numerous shots of the Hollywoodland sign keeps reminding us. Who says formulaic film-making must be bad as sometimes you want poptarts, not paté.

'Jack Reacher'

Christopher McQuarrie is mostly known for his work on The Usual Suspects and his directorial début, the hugely underestimated The Way of the Gun, so it was with an open mind ( and despite Tom Cruise) that I went to see Jack Reacher.

The opening sequence is one of the most suspenseful seen in cinema since, well The Usual Suspects, well crafted, shot in that subdued grey-colour scheme giving you that tingling hopeful sensation that you might just see that unexpected cinematic gem you never thought of looking for in this very film. Unfortunately, these hopes are soon bashed, but first things first. JR then opens with a sniper in a garage shooting five seemingly random people. The patient handling of the camera has you gripping your seat in anticipation and really conveys that horrible principle of completely random and thus absurd selection. It's knowledge McQuarrie plays with in this sequence, the horrible spectatorial knowledge that people are going to die and the terrible observation of the unknowing soon-to-be-dead. The mise-en-scene is more terrifying for its apparent simplicity and understatement, there is no blood to be seen, no brains splashed on the pavement and the screams remain muffled as if heard from a great distance, maybe a garage on the other side of the river, in which a sniper is taking his terrible pick.

On investigating the crime scene, Officer Emerson finds a fingerprint on a coin in the parking meter and a bullet overlooked by the rest of the police. A culprit is soon found in Iraq veteran Barr. The latter refuses to talk only advising the investigators to get Reacher. This becomes a problem as Reacher is the proverbial ghost, an ex-military who just vanished off the face of the earth, no phone number, no address, no credit card, just a social security number and the occasional money withdrawal, hey, dental is important ! Good thing then, that in exactly the moment they talk about him, Reacher walks through the door. I think that was meant to be humorous, but only came across as anti-climactic and slightly, erm, dumb. The rest of the film follows the Quincy principle: You know: Quincy deduces something the others don't believe, because, plainly they're too stupid, so he spends his time being admired by the ladies and patiently collecting evidence for what he long knows. All this is not a bad thing in itself, we've all seen films with less to offer plot-wise and enjoyed them, but here, things never quite take off. There's a veil that cannot be lifted, it seems, a shallowness which is never broken even if at times the film offers glimpses of McQuarries' talent.

Even Tom Cruise is, how shall I put this, alright? He does look a bit squashed though. Physique aside, he does seem to do justice to the Reacher character from Lee Child's novel series (I never read one) at least in terms of cockiness and the looming larger than life part. Fans of the cheesy one-liner will have a field day with this one, however, any form of witticism goes completely amiss in JR, as Cruise hasn't got the self-deprecating smirk of a Bruce Willis, neither are the lines of the excessive stupidity resulting in a hilarious action-thriller self-reflexivity of, oh, I dunno, a Schwarzenegger film. One line cannot be faulted however and that is: 'I mean to beat you to death and drink your blood from a boot.' It was as if the eighties came back and gave one big, comforting hug!

Don't get me wrong, I'm no big fan of the vigilante self-serving message the film conveys, but then, action thrillers are generally not designed for the politically sensible! So enough said about the issue of killing guys because the system might let them go! At least McQuarrie is carrying on the American cinematic tradition of regarding the law as intrinsically corrupt and against the little man!

Rosamund Pike plays Helen Rodin, daughter of the DA and smart idealistic defense lawyer of Barr. She spends her screen-time with her arms pressed together to emphasize a cleavage one has not seen on her before! There is no chemistry whatsoever between her and Cruise which is a good thing as I always find female interest in Cruise to be the scariest part of the fiction! Pike 's daddy issues seem to be the sole motivations of her career. All in all, she seems to be a projection surface upon which Cruise can alternately bounce ideas or polish his male ego. In one of the funniest scenes, though unintentionally so, Pike cannot concentrate as Cruise walks around with his bare torso! To be fair, I had a hard time looking away, however more in the I-shouldn't-but-cannot-stop-looking-at-the-accident kind of way. The strangely off angle of the shot with Pike centre-stage and Cruise's chest just sticking in the frame is just too weird. It's as if Cruise's nipples just popped in to say 'Hi'. Anyway, enough bare chested nonsense, back to Pikes' performance and my lament: Why, oh, why, did she ever accept this role? Pike is a good actress, on the way to being great, but even she cannot save this shallow character and Cruise-admiring dialogue from the most simplified form of misanthropy. In the end, most of the time, she resembles a Playboy version of a lawyer. This is female empowerment as imagined by Hollywood: Yes, she's in heels, but only because she chooses to as an educated adult and her salivation whenever Cruise enters the frame is one of empowerment. Yes, right!

My near-obsession with Richard Jenkins is well documented, but even he cannot weasel his way out of poor character conception. Jenkins' acting relies mainly on his world-weary, droopy-eyed slouching, but here it constantly seems as if Jenkins was really just sad and depressed about the quality of the lines he has to offer. Richard Jenkins cannot and should not under any circumstances be used as cannon fodder. That's what we got Donald Sutherland for!!!

The reason why JR is not a complete failure is two-fold: Werner Herzog and Robert Duvall! When coming upon Herzog's name in the opening credits, it felt as if the world had shifted out of place, kind of like what you imagine Middle Earth must have felt like when Sauron took over the show! But then, we have come to expect the unexpected from Herzog. Herzog's character Zec is the stuff of European medieval fairy tales. Why he is blind on one eye is never explained, however, it helps create a character who is vividly nightmarish, ironically not so far off a Kinski performance. Maybe Herzog picked up a few things on the set of Aguirre! When he gnarls: I spent my first winter as a prisoner in Siberia wearing a dead man's coat. I chewed these fingers off before the frostbite could turn to gangrene – one cannot help but salute him. Werner, you the man!

The other performance gem comes in the form of Duvall's character as gun-nut Cash, one of the craziest and most likeable characters on screen. Duvall plays Cash with exactly the right kind of devil-may-care crazy-son-of-a-bitch attitude that the genre needs and it's only when either Duvall or Herzog appear that the general stagnancy of the film is broken and the action really comes to life. Sadly, their screen-time is too limited for those two to save the film.

McQuirre is clearly fascinated with pulp fiction, from Hammett and Chandler to Higgins and most recently Child- their influences are felt. The protagonist, type lone vigilante gun-man, is as noir as they come. The world-weariness and jaded sense of justice are as old as cinema itself. The double-crossings, set-ups and innocence corrupted, the whole thematic shenanigans - all present. So, by definition, this should be one amazing two-hour ride. Except, it never takes off. Cruise cannot pull Reacher off, Pike remains stale and doll-like, the action drags on, never reaching the point of explicitly boring but never far off. Duvall and Herzog manage to infuse some life into this over-reaching (Yep, I went there!), but, unfortunately, Jack Reacher remains one of those films you can watch hungover on a Sunday afternoon with a box of greasy take-away and that hair-of-a-dog pint. This vehicle for Cruise's ego does, however, not warrant an eight-quid ticket. Money better invested in buying a Richard Jenkins poster to put over your bed...just a suggestion!