Sean Penn Embarrasses Himself in Over-Acted Gangster Squad
To do so, Sarge must first assemble an all-star team of clean cops, and here the movie turns into a shoddy replica of The Untouchables. The director, Ruben Fleischer, who had a hit with Zombieland three years ago even though the film seemed to rush its ending, this time rushes the whole movie, scarcely giving any shadings to any character as he races ahead to the next hectic shootout or explosion. Sarge’s team is so hastily assembled that it seems almost random.
First to join is a cynical cop named Wooters (Ryan Gosling) O’Mara seems to pick because the two recently bumped into each other at the station. Then O’Mara picks up a sharpshooter (Robert Patrick), an outcast (Michael Pena), and an all-purpose geek (Giovanni Ribisi) who does things like tap phone lines. So little effort is put into establishing these characters that they essentially merge into a single indistinguishable blob of rough justice. Sarge’s equally blurry wife Connie (Mireille Enos) who, in one scene, is telling Sarge to keep his head down and avoid confrontations with any gangsters, in the next scene dives into the team-building process and instantly becomes an expert on spotting honest cops simply by looking at their files.
Most of the film is a demented rush from one ridiculous action scene to the next. In the early going O’Mara invades a flophouse to free an innocent girl who is about to be raped and in the process apparently randomly kills two guys who try to stop him in the elevator on the way up (it’s actually not clear what happens due to the sloppy editing that characterizes the whole film). You would think that, even in 1949 L.A., it might be inconvenient for a cop to be involved in a killing (wouldn’t there be paperwork, at least?), but Sarge and his team of destroyers keep mowing through the city with utter impunity until the geeky Ribisi character asks, not unreasonably, “Can you remind me of the difference between us and them?”
Sounds like the director is going for Tarantino-lite. Sorry, I’ll stick with “L.A. Confidential.”
From The Untouchables to the Unwatchables. Which of these characters was the baby in the pram?
When is Penn moving to Caracas to finish out Chavez’s new term?
I wouldn’t watch any movie with Sean Penn in it . . . not even if it were a good movie. I am done with supporting leftist buffoons.
I wouldn’t cross the street to urinate on Sean Penn if he were on fire, much less pay to see any movie with him in it.
Sean Penn as a gangster…hahahahahah
I know, huh? He’s an angry little pissant, but hardly intimidating or “bad.”
Yet another reason I do not like most actors. They actually come to somehow believe they are what they portray.
i would be more afraid of Don Knotts then sean penn
Haven’t seen it but I’m concerned reviewers are wildly not on the same page when it comes to films lately. There has always been divergence of opinion but why are people lauding the crashing bore of a Bond film called “Skyfall?”
The first 40 min. was so dull and senseless I stopped and watched “The Ipcress File” instead, an actually clever screenplay with actually clever cinematography. I don’t watch Bond films to see bitchy, old, overrated actresses. And the lazy cinematography of “Skyfall” is Oscar nominated?
And then there were the complaints “Zero Dark Thirty” was confusing. In what world was that film confusing? We should agree on a language before we start speaking it.
Sean Penn embarasses himself by breathing.
Just the ‘trailer’ to this was LOL funny.
Sean Penn in this movie looks like Al Pacino did in the movie “Dick Tracy” years ago. But that movie was a spoof on comic strips, which this movie I assume tries to avoid (and fails miserably in doing so). It’s a shame, because the subject matter really is interesting, as movies like “L.A. Confidential” proved so well. All you needed was a good director, a good cast, a good film editor, a decent plot, and a great script. Hmmmm, seems like this movie is missing all of that. Oh well, at least it’s nice to see Nick Nolte acting again. He must have finished drying out in rehab.
Hugo Milk…
I haven’t watched a Sean Penn movie since Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and that was only to see Phoebe Cates half naked!! hehehe!
Didn’t Sean Penn show up after Katrina in a boat wearing a white bullet proof vest a Handgun on his hip and after sailing away while the media watched to save New Orleans realize his crew had forgotten to put the drain plug back in where upon he and his posse began to frantically bail the boat out with solo cups?
No life jackets, no floatation devices but hell, Sean did bring his gun and vest.
I thought so.
Sean Penn is what falls out when you mash a whoopi goldberg up with a bill maher.
Jeff Spicoli meets Frank Drebin.
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Why is it I look at trailers for this and can’t for a minute believe any of these guys/gals to be 40′s cops, gangsters and molls? It’s so transparently a bunch of people playing dress-up that it can’t possibly work as anything other than a comedy. The only reason I can come up with to explain why everyone seems so phony is that everyone involved is utterly lacking in historical vision. Instead of just portraying a bunch of Americans who were a whole lot like us in every way, the filmmakers approach the period with this overstated irony as if life in the 40’s was like a Noh play or something.
Well said — my thoughts exactly.
Penn is so insistantly unaware that he could not possibly be embarrassed by any role that he takes on, on-screen or off.
There are a number of so-called A-listers who fall into the same deadly trap. It is not necessary to name them; they do not exist.
But is it possible for this low information buffoon ever to be embarrassed about anything?
You know you’re watching a great actor when you forget that they’re acting.
Sean Penn never let’s you forget that he’s an actor mouthing words in front of a camera.
AWFUL.