Dude, that's actually a pretty good tagline...
The Story:
Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) is a former boxer turned gangster. Instead of being part of the eastern syndicate, he's setting up shop in LA, and running out any competition and keeping Chicago at bay. So, his operations means that back in 1949, he had cops and judges on his payroll, and this irritates the Chief (Nick Nolte) so he asks a no-nonsense homicide detective (Josh Brolin) to form a badge-less group of cops (Ryan Gosling, Robert Patrick and Giovanni Ribisi to name a few), to make Cohen's operations start to fall apart. He recruits his squad, and they go after Cohen...
But not everyone is going to walk out of this unscathed on either side.
I couldn't tell you why this one didn't do that great at the box office. It's a little long, and slow. Actually, I would use methodical.
Everything builds, slowly, surely, until the final confrontation.
I was engrossed in the story for the most part.
Recreating Los Angeles circa 1949, it is a beautiful movie to watch. The clothes, the cars, the set pieces... all wonderful to see and very well done.
There isn't nearly as much squad interaction as there should be... or for that matter, much of the squad's mucking up of Cohen's operations gets glossed over very quickly.
Perhaps they could have trimmed some of the exposition and early scenes that don't really do much except to reinforce what we have already gathered.
Plus, while eventually she is important to the story, the love interest (Emma Stone) can be some of the cause for the slow factor as well. Love stories in action films are often unnecessary, but added I think solely to increase female interest in a guy's movie.
It's no Untouchables, but it's not Unwatchable, either.
Final Grade: B-
Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I could watch it again if it was on, but nothing screams for me to run out and buy this one.
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