CREDIT: LIONSGATE
Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling light up the big screen in Gangster Squad.

Gangster Squad (2013)

What do you get when you combine the classic glamour of the late 1940s, the sex appeal of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone and a hazy view on where the law ends and vigilantism begins? You get the Gangster Squad.

The latest effort from director Ruben Fleischer, whose previous directing jobs include the wildly successful indie flick Zombieland as well as the side-splitting 30 Minutes or Less, takes the audience back in time to 1949 Los Angeles to watch crime and corruption threaten to take over the City of Angels. Mickey Cohen is the big man in L.A., a mob boss whose grip on the city is ever tightening. When enough is finally enough, Chief of Police Bill Parker decided to put together a team of his best men and send them completely off the books and off the grid in order to take down Cohen. Together O'Mara, Wooters, Harris, Keeler, Ramirez and Kennard make up the Gangster Squad. In the middle of everything is the young Grace Faraday, Cohen's girl and Wooters' new flame, who finds herself torn between the two men on opposing sides of the fight.

The cast of Gangster Squad couldn't be better suited to their roles nor more well-rounded as a whole. Sean Penn takes the criminal lead in this one bringing to life his character Mickey Cohen on the screen with passion and intensity. Penn has always been one to give his characters both a strong sense of realism as well as rich complexities and his turn as Cohen is no exception to either of these rules.

Directly opposite Penn are Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin as Wooters and O'Mara, respectively. Gosling has grown into such a strong actor that it should be no surprise that his performance as a cop-turned-vigilante is riveting each and every second he is onscreen. And what can be said about Josh Brolin that hasn't already been said? A living legend in Hollywood, Brolin is simply brilliant as always.

As one of Hollywood's brightest new stars, it should also come as no surprise that Emma Stone nails her role as femme fatale/damsel in distress Grace Faraday. Stone has proven time and time again in big Hollywood flicks — think The Help and The Incredible Spider-Man — that she has what it takes to not only hold her own against the heavy-hitters of Hollywood but even outshine them once or twice.

With the right aesthetic qualities to make you feel as though you've actually stepped back in time, the right talent to bring the characters to a stunning life onscreen and a story to keep you glued to the screen for each minute of run-time, it would seem that Gangster Squad has it all. If you're looking for the next great criminal-versus-cop movie, or if you just want to see more of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone on the big screen, then definitely check out Gangster Squad.

Rating: 5 out of 5