Gangster Squad (film)

In 1949 Los Angeles, Mafia boss Mickey Cohen has become the most powerful figure in the California criminal underworld and intends to expand his criminal enterprise to Chicago and New York City. The LAPD has not been able to stop Cohen's ruthless rise, as he has eliminated witnesses, hired dirty cops to protect his criminal activities, and shielded himself from prosecution through corruption in the justice system.

Determined to put a stop to Cohen, LAPD Chief Bill Parker creates a secret police unit, composed of officers who do not carry badges and are authorized to act outside of the law, with the sole mission of bringing Cohen to justice. Parker puts a trusted friend, Sergeant John O'Mara, in charge of secretly building the unit. With the help of his wife, Connie, he recruits Sergeant Jerry Wooters and four incorruptible misfit officers – black Lieutenant Coleman Harris, electronics expert and family man Conwell Keeler, sharpshooter Max Kennard, and Kennard's Hispanic protégé Navidad Ramirez. Calling themselves the "Gangster Squad", they begin the task of destroying Cohen's operations.

The Squad's plans go well, striking several successful blows at the heart of Cohen's criminal organization, even shutting down his ultralucrative wire gambling business. Cohen, not knowing that the Squad is LAPD, believes someone has betrayed him to rivals and strikes out at those around him, including his etiquette tutor Grace Faraday. Wooters has been not only seeing Faraday, but also entering a romantic relationship with her, and tries to help her escape from Cohen, enlisting the help of mutual friend and gangster Jack Whalen to keep her safe.

Realizing the attackers have never stolen his money, Cohen deduces they are cops and figures out that they have bugged his house. He uses it to lure the Squad into an unsuccessful ambush in Chinatown while Keeler is executed by a Cohen hitman while checking his tapes. When Faraday witnesses Cohen murder Whalen in cold blood, she agrees to testify against her former employer. O'Mara forces a crooked judge to do his duty and sign an arrest warrant before leading the Squad to the Park Plaza Hotel to arrest Cohen.

Cohen and his men engage in a lengthy shootout with the Squad, with Wooters and Kennard being wounded in the process. Cohen and his bodyguard Karl Lennox escape, but O'Mara rams their vehicle into a fountain. Navidad helps a dying Kennard shoot Lennox, who was about to shoot O'Mara. Cohen and O'Mara fight each other in a brutal bareknuckle brawl while a crowd of onlookers and journalists gather. O'Mara finally beats Cohen and has him arrested, ending his spread of the mafia into the Los Angeles area. The Gangster Squad is never mentioned for its role, and its surviving members remain a secret. Cohen is sentenced to life imprisonment and is greeted with a beating by inmates who were friends of Whalen. Wooters and Faraday get married, and O'Mara quits his job with the LAPD to live a quiet life with his wife and son.

• Josh Brolin as Sergeant John O'Mara. O'Mara is a World War II veteran-turned-cop with a reputation as an honest, hardworking, and no-nonsense man. He is a decorated war hero, having earned the Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. He is believed to have been a part of the OSS as his Army record is partially classified.[4]
• Ryan Gosling as Sergeant Jerry Wooters. Wooters is an easygoing playboy and cop who initially struggles with the responsibility of fighting Cohen's organization but changes his mind when he sees just how ruthless Cohen can be. He, too, is a World War II veteran, having served in the Pacific.[4]
• Emma Stone as Grace Faraday. Faraday is Cohen's social etiquette teacher and quasi lover. She is soft-spoken but has a heart for Wooters over Cohen and eventually betrays her lover to the police.[5]
• Giovanni Ribisi as Officer Conwell Keeler, an electronics expert who joins the Squad because of his expertise in planting wiretaps. He is murdered on Cohen's orders.[6]
• Nick Nolte as Chief Bill Parker, a friend of O'Mara's who forms the Squad in order to take down Cohen.[7]
• Anthony Mackie as Lieutenant Coleman Harris, a black officer recruited into the Squad with expertise in knife and gun fighting.[8]
• Robert Patrick as Officer Max Kennard, a member of the Squad renowned for his skill with a gun. He dies from a wound suffered while trying to arrest Cohen.
• Michael Peña as Officer Navidad Ramirez, Kennard's protégé.[9]
• Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen, the most powerful mobster in Los Angeles, with a reputation for sadism and ruthlessness. His desire to expand his criminal empire to major cities back East is opposed by the Squad.
• Mireille Enos as Connie O'Mara, John's loyal wife.
• Troy Garity as Wrevock, Cohen's top enforcer.
• Holt McCallany as Karl Lennox, Cohen's bodyguard who is killed by a wounded Kennard when he tries to shoot O'Mara during a firefight with Cohen.
• Sullivan Stapleton as Jack Whalen, a gangster who is friends with Wooter and volunteers to protect Grace from Cohen. Cohen shoots him dead when he tries to fight off an attempt on Grace's life.
• James Carpinello as Johnny Stompanato
• James Hébert as Mitch Racine
• Evan Jones as Neddy Herbert
• Josh Pence as Officer Daryl Gates, a rookie member of the LAPD.
• John Aylward as Judge Carter, a dirty judge on Cohen's payroll who nevertheless signs his arrest warrant.
• Jack Conley as Eugene W. Biscailuz, the High Sherrif Of Los Angeles County tasked with protecting Cohen's gambling operation.
• Jack McGee as Lt. Quincannon
• Jon Polito as Jack Dragna, a rival mob boss who Cohen has murdered when he suspects him of trying to undermine his power.
• Wade Williams as Rourke
• Ambyr Childers as Milk skinned blonde
• Mick Betancourt as Detective Sgt. Will Hendricks
• Mac Brandt as Bruiser
• Brandon Molale as Jimmy "Bockscar" Knox
• Michael Papajohn as Mike "The Flea"
• Jeff Wolfe as Giovanni Vacarezza
• Anthony Molinari as Lorenzo Molinari
• Austin Highsmith as Patty
• Neil Koppel as Max Solomon
• Austin Abrams as Pete
• Lucy Davenport as Slapsy Maxie's singer
• Dennis Cockrum as Elmer Jackson, Burbank Police Chief
• Haley Strode as Keeler's wife, Maria
• Maxwell Perry Cotton as Keeler's son, Charlie
• Frank Grillo as Jimmy Reagan, a criminal who Cohen kills by having him pulled apart by cars.
• Lucy Walsh as Manicurist

The film was originally supposed to be theatrically released in the United States on September 7, 2012.[15] However in the wake of the Aurora shooting and the need to accompany for reshoots, it was pushed back to January 11, 2013.[16]

The film is inspired by the real-life Gangster Squad of the LAPD, although much of the film is fabricated.[29][30]

• The film portrays Cohen organizing the murder of his overseer Jack Dragna, whereas in reality Cohen and Dragna were equals and Dragna died of a heart attack in 1956.
• William Parker was only 45 years old in 1949, and not in his 70s like Nick Nolte (Parker did not live to become 70; he died at age 61), and was not the one who created the Gangster Squad. The Squad was created by Chief Clemence B. Horrall in 1946, and was in an effort to save the image of the city, not the actual city itself.
• The film concludes with Cohen being arrested in 1949 for murder and sent to Alcatraz. In reality, he was imprisoned in 1951 and again in 1961 for tax evasion. He was, however, attacked with a lead pipe while in prison as mentioned.
• While Anthony Mackie and Michael Peña are members of the Squad in the film, the real life group had no African-American or Hispanics as part of it.
• While it is possible Cohen murdered Jack Whalen in real life, it was not at Whalen's home as depicted in the film. Whalen was shot in 1959 while at dinner with Cohen and three of his associates, although Cohen was not accused or convicted of the murder himself.
• Cohen's bodyguard Johnny Stompanato was not shot like depicted in the film, but instead lived until 1958, when he was stabbed by Cheryl Crane, the daughter of his girlfriend, Lana Turner.
• The character Max Kennard was based on real life lawman Doug (Jumbo) Kennard, who was killed in a 1952 drunk car crash after he had retired, and not shot in the line of duty like in the film.
• In the film, Conwell Keeler is the first member of the Squad to be killed. In real life, he outlived all other members of the Gangster Squad, dying of a stroke in 2012.

• Official website
• Gangster Squad at IMDb
• Gangster Squad at Rotten Tomatoes
• Gangster Squad at Box Office Mojo
• Squad Gangster Squad at the Internet Movie Firearms Database