Gangster Squad

The only kind of gangster movie I like to watch nowadays is where the gangster's butts are kicked, the harder buttkicking the better, and from that perspective I love this movie, with Brolin not being far from a superman. They've selected a great bunch of actors and the storytelling is very entertaining.

The Guardian says the story has little connection to reality but there is nothing to support that claim. The story seems to match the real events rather well, you can find the story in an LA Times Article from 2008 by googling "Crusaders in the underworld: The LAPD takes on organized crime, by Paul Lieberman", an award-winning journalist, and he also wrote a book on this subject in 2012.

I find the lack of blood unrealistic especially in the beginning, but it is nice not to have the actors wading in blood like in Tarantinos movies so that's fine.

Many people here seem to criticize this movie for being a cliche copy of other gangster movies, but on the contrary I find that if one disregards all gangster movies I dont want to watch because they are fictional or assume you are interested in the lives of gangster leeches then not many are left, this is one of them and definitely worth watching. Maybe there is a bit too much focus on superficial entertainment and less on deepening the characters but maybe for a reason, I can see how personalities like Brolins and Goslings are not the deepest, and maybe there wasn't much facts to base Stones character on, since it seems Lieberman's work was mostly based on police reports.

So if you feel like rooting for the good guys and seeing butts kicked in a very entertaining movie based on true events then this is for you.