Gangster Squad - Blu-Ray

Movie: Los Angeles in 1949: The city is firmly in the grip of gangster boss Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), who is not only in charge of drugs, arms dealing and prostitution. Even several high-ranking police officers and politicians are on Cohen's payroll. So it's almost impossible for the honest cops, who are a thorn in Cohen's side, to take action against him. And whoever dares to do it anyway, can end up bitterly. But Sgt. John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) doesn't see why he should be intimidated by the gangster and his brutal henchmen. After all, he didn`t fight for freedom and peace in World War II only to watch his city perish from the omnipotence fantasies of a ruthless mobster. On behalf of the intrepid Chief Parker (Nick Nolte), O`Mara recruits a small secret task force to use means beyond law and order to ensure that Cohen is knocked from his throne. And indeed the plan seems to work after first small setbacks. But of course, a Mickey Cohen is not so easily kept down...

With his highly amusing and original debut, the horror-comedy Zombieland, director Ruben Fleischer has shown a great talent for stylish, bloody and amusing genre cinema. Though the follow-up, the crook comedy 30 Minutes or Less, failed to maintain the level of Fleischer's debut, his knack for visually staging action sequences was again evident. Now the filmmaker has changed subjects again for his third feature. Gangster Squad is his first attempt at relatively serious material. His thriller has suspense, drama, action, blood, a bit of humor and a little romance to offer - all the ingredients of which a good gangster film is made.

Visually, the film based on true events is again beyond reproach. At times, the whole thing feels like a graphic novel made real, with Fleischer consistently taking the comic book-like style of Zombieland to the next level. The set is just as convincing as the visual effects, through which the Los Angeles of the late 1940s has been brought back to life. And in terms of acting, the lead-laden thriller is also on quite a high level. While Sean Penn successfully counters the fact that the audience is too distracted by his somewhat too obvious make-up, the sparks between Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone continue to fly violently in their second screen appearance together after Crazy Stupid Love. And Josh Brolin is also convincing as a determined fighter for justice, even if his dialogues are a bit too filled with pathos at times.

Despite all its positive aspects, Gangster Squad has not become a comparable masterpiece like its great idols a la The Untouchables. The reason for this is the fact that Fleischer presents more of a genre best-of and doesn't bring in enough of his own ideas that would make the film stand out from the crowd of similar works and give it some sustainability. For the little gangster movie hunger in between, Fleischer's film offers perfect entertainment. But for a modern classic of the genre, it just lacks that very personal touch, even if the battle of the men from the Gangster Squad against Mickey Cohen has a lot of great moments to offer. But at least those are still enough in the end to be able to attest the film an absolutely worth seeing!

Image + Sound: The sometimes artificial, comic book style of the film also comes across well on the Blu-ray thanks to the slightly alienated color scheme, the good matching of black levels and contrasts and due to the high level of detail. The sound has some very powerful surround moments to offer, but they don't overpower the quieter, dialogue-heavy scenes too much. Even though the German audio is only available in a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix and therefore doesn't come across as powerful as the English DTS-HD Master Audio mix, there's a satisfying good here!

Extras: In contrast to the very meagrely equipped DVD, the Blu-ray has some good extras to offer. Starting things off is an informative audio commentary by director Ruben Fleischer, though there are no subtitle options available for it. For all the other bonuses, however, they are available. The picture-in-picture feature offers the viewer information on the real background and making of the film in the form of text panels, pictures and clips during the film. The focus points that can be switched on here can then also be played on their own. Then the fifteen short documentaries, covering such topics as real history, 1940s fashion, real locations, and Ryan Gossling and Emma Stone's on-camera reunion, add up to a pretty decent making of with a total running time of just under 46 minutes.

Continue with a comparison of the locations then and now (about 8:03 min.), involving animated photos and text panels. This extra also comes from the picture-in-picture feature. So if you've already watched the film that way, you don't need to watch this again. Much more interesting is the documentary Gallery of Villains - Mickey Cohen (approx. 46 min.), which was produced a few years ago for US TV and in which you can learn more about the real background of the film.

Tough Guys with Style (approx. 5 min.) is a short promo featurette, which, together with seven removed scenes (approx. 12 min.) concludes the additional offer. However, the infamous scene from the first trailer, which involves a shootout in a movie theater and was edited out after the massacre in Aurora, is also not included here. Still, for the decent bonus material, it gets a more than satisfactory Good!

Conclusion: Gangster Squad may not have the makings of a classic, but it's stylistically compelling enough to offer fans of classic gangster cinema good entertainment with an ensemble cast worth watching. The Blu-ray presents the film in good to very good picture and sound quality and the bonus material also has some good features to offer. And for that this disc then also deserves a recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp