The Spectacular Now (08.2013)

8/19/13

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7/10)

The Spectacular now

Written by the writers of (500) Days of Summer, The Spectacular Now (2013) is one of those rare adult teenage movies. A hardcore partier Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) is outgoing and well-loved in his high school, where he meets an average girl-next-door named Aimee Finecky (Shailene Woodley). The two share an intimate time in life during the transition from high school to college, and develop a special bond through heartbreak and disillusionment. Just like the two protagonists who have the biggest hearts, this movie is full of love.

26-year-old actor Teller’s Sutter Keely is bare and vulnerable, which comes across to the audience as transparent and frank. Sutter meets with appropriate character development that he is delivered as a troubled, but loveable character. Teller’s acting, however, may not have been the greatest in The Spectacular Now. There were moments where I felt uncomfortable watching Teller dumbly stare while making conversation with his opposite, Shailene Woodley. Sutter is meant to be socially apt and far from awkward, and yet his basic mannerisms were awkward and stiff in a few scenes of regular conversation. It seemed as if Teller wasn’t comfortable before the camera for whatever reason.

Furthermore, some moments in the movie had a cheesy dialogue and awkward acting from the side characters, such as the dinner scene where Sutter’s family cheers to “dreams.” The moments of awkwardness, however, were minimal and negligible. It is also understandable because The Spectacular Now is an independent film of a low budget. Woodley, on the other hand, perfectly portrayed an innocent young girl entering the world of adults, and still maintained her sweetness and big heart.

As a quirky independent film, The Spectacular Now is particular and does not use too many fancy techniques. Editing and cinematography is straightforward and directly express the actors’ state of mind and feelings. The forthright direction is refreshing to see after the bombardment of summer blockbusters that require a mix-up of every basic rule in the Hollywood success book.

For example, one scene has Aimee and Sutter face straight at and talk to the camera during their conversation. The viewers feel as if the two teens are talking to them, even though it is clear that they are speaking to each other. The simplicity in the film delivers complex material and deeply seeps the audience with the characters’ emotions, because they come across directly and easily to us without circumvention.

As the film is honest and real, it also makes it hard for the spectators to watch the adolescents break through their innocence and discover the world of ignorance and corruption. Every time that Sutter drove under influence, I found myself scared and nervous that he might get in a horrible car crash and injure himself. I also found myself with small tears when watching their hearts break over family and romantic drama.

On the other hand, this movie is not only about family and love, but also about understanding to let go of what is the present. No matter how great things can be in the present, both Sutter and Aimee have to move on into the future. Their moments in high school are only spectacular because they are fleeting, because they can’t guarantee this “now” to go on forever. If they stir up their life a bit and start working forward, however, only then will they be able to meet that spectacular moment of “now” again.

The Spectacular Now is tender and sincerely reaches out to its viewers. It is about letting go and moving past the spectacular present to find another spectacular in the future. Though it has some small flaws, it is an especially touching movie worth seeing because we all know how hard it is to let go of that one spectacular moment in life.

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Blue Jasmine (08.2013)

8/7/2013

★★★★★★★★★☆ (9/10)

Anyone who has watched a couple of Woody Allen’s films will recognize the soft jazzy tunes commencing his newest picture, Blue Jasmine. Not to mention the French music flowing in and out throughout the movie. Allen’s Francophilic tendencies surface again in the heroine’s name, Jasmine French (Cate Blanchett).

Blue Jasmine begins at the present, where Jasmine talks endlessly on a plane ride to a dumbfounded lady next seat. And before you know it, we are taken to a flashback of when Jasmine’s life was still strung perfectly together. Every bit of her past—grandiose house, charming husband, impeccable fashion, and admirable status—is enviable.

However, Jasmine is not her old self anymore. She is now going through a life crisis after losing all her money and status by a grand financial scandal with her husband. She flies to California to reunite with her fellow adopted sister who provides her with emotional support and housing. But after flying above the clouds, walking on the ground like normal people is not such an easy task.

This film revolves around a woman we think we should hate, but surprisingly love. We cannot blame Jasmine for being conceited and spoiled, because she has so much reason to be so. Furthermore, she does indeed try her best to escape from the crisis both in the ways that she knows and does not know. It’s only when we realize that she is far too broken that we understand the cruelty of the human world.

Cate Blanchett’s acting is more than superb in this dark comedy. Her character is helplessly disoriented, contemptible, and… I suppose I have to say it—crazy. Blanchett’s depiction of Jasmine as the humiliated socialite is so genuine and full of emotions; the viewers are sure to pity and fall in love with Jasmine.

Blue Jasmine connects to its viewers because it is much more honest and humanistic than Allen’s other films. As Jasmine deceives others and even her own self with lies in order to ensure her place, the movie shows us our weakness toward wealth and class, and how we struggle to cling onto a social status that we believe will guarantee respect and happiness.

Allen doesn’t mean to charm or warm our hearts with Jasmine. Instead, he means to illustrate a tragedy so complete and pathetic that it pains us to watch: Jasmine’s teary red eyes pierce our hearts and deliver honest desperation. In the end, however, it is easy to fall in love with this character who is so vulnerable, and then with this darling film that arouses emotions of our own.

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The Wolverine (08.2013)

It’s been a while since I last posted, but I recently began to work for a company called Third Wheel Entertainment, which is a fabulous start-up entertainment company based in Chicago. Make sure to check out our website, http://thirdwheelentertainment.tumblr.com/.

Here it is! My review for The Wolverine.

The-Wolverine-Hugh-Jackman-as-Wolverine-in-Japan-Courtesy-of-20th-Century-Fox

The Wolverine (2013)

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

I’m sure that I’m not the only one who thinks that the X-Men and Wolverineseries are running too old and too long. Yes, there have been many comics written about the ousted, supernatural mutants fighting to save the world, but one too many do not often please. The comic lovers seem to love the constant fruition of Wolverine adaptations, but to the non-comic lovers, it’s coming to be a little bit too much.

Director James Mangold’s The Wolverine (2013) is a PG-13 rated movie based on the 1982 comic book series Wolverine. It means to catch up to the current film world’s trend of the superb robotic monster fights, and yet it struggles in between that and its old-fashioned 1980’s imagination. In this recent adaptation, Wolverine fights his inner struggles against bestial violence, and along the way meets a beautiful Japanese woman named Mariko. He fights and fights against the Yakuzas, a fellow mutant, and an almighty robot—all to protect this highly endangered woman that he comes to love.

The action in the movie, for one part, is beautifully done. In one particular scene, Wolverine fights off Yakuza gang members to protect his love-interest on top of a Japanese bullet train. A top-of-the-train action scene sounds ordinary and classic for any of our 21st century high-budget action movies, but this one’s special because a bullet train is as much as three times faster than a regular train. The chase-fight scene and its unbelievable speed are exhilarating to watch. It’s one of the best action sequences of this summer’s blockbuster scene, if not the entire realm of blockbuster.

And yet, this bullet train scene is the only highlight of it all. The other action scenes are clumsy with needless upside-down flips of ninja-samurais, only to render the whole thing silly. Yukio, the trusted friend of Mariko and guardian of Wolverine, is a fantastic samurai and strong woman who defeats a supernatural mutant all by herself. Yet, after a minor hit by a non-supernatural samurai, she disappears from screen until Wolverine defeats him alone. Wolverine comes back to get her and see if she’s okay, and of course, she’s uninjured and perfectly fine. So why couldn’t she go help Wolverine while he was struggling in his lonely fight? I can only assume it’s a goof that I can’t let go ignored.

Here’s one reason why the comic-lovers may have loved this movie, while I, a non-comic lover, didn’t. The plot that was based on the original comic was, to me, unnecessarily twisted. One betrays one after the other after another—to the extent that it became a little ridiculous. Furthermore, what happened to the initial fight against brutality that Wolverine struggled to maintain in his lonely mountain range? Is the point of the movie to embrace who you are, even if you are a natural and brutal killer? Does Wolverine discover the meaning of life, and thus find reason to live? But what exactly is that motive—love? Peace and serenity of humans and earth? I still have many questions unanswered.

I am usually an opponent of anything violent, and in The Wolverine, I wondered whether it should have been rated R instead. It is often unfortunate that many filmmakers forgo the completeness of a film for economic profits, and this movie was one example of such sacrifice. With many grotesque ideas and images throughout the movie, I believe it would have better sufficed to directly orient the movie to the mature adult viewers.

All in all, after the negative points I made about The Wolverine, I don’t think that the movie was entirely a bad one. Though it was not as refined as I hoped it to be, it had the action scenes that anyone would likely enjoy. So, to those looking for the best superhero movie of their life—I recommend not to waste your time with this one. But to anyone who is looking for a fun night out, go ahead and watch this movie.

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What is your favorite movie?

Lost in Translation

It’s often difficult to answer when someone asks of your favorite movie. There are countless fabulous movies out there to choose from. But if you’ve watched enough of them from the large selection available, you naturally come across a few that particularly resonate in your mind. These selected few probably impact you the most powerfully because of the kind of life that you lived; some films have elements that invoke sentiments only of your own. This is why I love asking people about their favorite movies; they tell so much about the person in an instant.

An experience of viewing a movie depends a whole lot based on where you watched it, with whom you watched it, how you felt at the time, and so on. Everything about you at the time of viewing creates a tight bond with the movie that’s irrevocable at any other time or space. I don’t like to re-watch movies because, no matter how much I love the film, I can never recreate the effusive sentiment that had once bloomed inside.

When someone asks me what my favorite movie is, I come to a conclusion based on how much the film moved me on my first viewing. A film moves me when it elicits a sweet image of “beauty” at reminiscence. My kind of movies is one that I can think back on and sigh a little joy of satisfaction—that there is beauty in the world that I can always look forward to seeing. I may actually even say that it’s the memory of the movie, and not the movie itself, that gradually moves me.

It so happens to be, that, at the top of the tier of my kind of movies, is Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why I loved the movie so much. I didn’t know how it grappled me so hard and swept away both my breath and tears. It was so shockingly beautiful and joyful to think back to it, and I didn’t even know why.

I wrote a short piece on Lost in Translation around this time last year, and I wanted to expand on it because three paragraphs for my favorite movie simply aren’t enough. Here is the piece that I had posted on Tumblr (it was my only means of writing at the time):

“When Bob and Charlotte meet, they first come across to me as like other adults desperate to find ways out of their unfortunate, jaded lives. They are both unhappily married but are rather, surprisingly, compliant to their distress. They do not seem to fight, or even want to try to fight, to reverse their lives gone astray. Nevertheless, they immediately connect with one another because of their similarity as born-and-raised Americans, without a clue to what they are doing in a country that speaks little to no language of their own. As much as they are lost from the translation from Japanese to English and vice versa, they are also lost in their own adulthood: Charlotte’s longing eyes search outside her empty hotel room window and Bob’s diminishing wine only fills up again to obscure whatever the bottom of the glass may reveal. Figuratively, as well as literally, Bob and Charlotte are both lost in translation.

Bob and Charlotte are longing for something they do not yet know; they are both lost in the process of replenishing what is missing in their lives. Surely, they know that their decayed love life is central to their unhappiness, but it is their inability to act against it that leaves them so hopeless and directionless. Thus, when they make eye contact in the bar, they reckon that maybe, just maybe, the other can set his or her path straight. This instant, mutually dependent relationship unravels each character’s disheveled life, and ultimately reveals that this serendipitous friendship may be fleeting but as powerful as any other.

As I struggle to hear Bob’s final words to Charlotte and am dismayed to find them inaudible, I realize that I am lost in the search for my own direction. Like the lost words, I am engulfed by the loudness of busy paths and peoples, unable to decide what to make of the film’s ending and my own life’s confusion. Then, I begin to hope that the muted words and the final heart-wrenching embrace have ultimately paved a way for the two lost souls.”

Several years after viewing the film, I still think of the heart-wrenching embrace of the two lost souls. What really sunk in my memory, however, is actually the hint of smile that emerged on the crying façade of Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) after this embrace. My memory, through time, filtered the scene that affected me the most. If not for this hint of smile, I can only imagine that I may not have even remembered that I watched this movie.

Charlotte’s hint of smile led me to think—I may be totally confused and lost in translation, but there will always be an opportunity to turn it around, throw a little smile, and leave it all behind.

I had written above, “I am engulfed by the loudness of busy paths and peoples, unable to decide what to make of the film’s ending and my own life’s confusion.” I guess I thought I was just a confused adolescent that needed one solution, my one Bob, to unravel my messy life. Now I realize that there is never going to be a time where there isn’t something to unravel; there will always be confusion, a conflict that I will struggle to overcome. And a solution will always manage to pop up, if only, I look for one.

Lost in Translation also confirms why I love movies so much, because it shows that the tiniest piece of a film, like the trace of Charlotte’s lips almost making into a smile, can change everything for the audience. This smile gradually became the definition of optimism and the base of my motto—to always find light within the shadows of obscurity.

So, when you get a chance, ask me. What is my favorite movie? And I will answer: My favorite movie is Lost in Translation, and it defines a great part of me. Oh, I can go on and on, if you would only let me.

 

Now You See Me is a sleek runway with sparks of magic

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Behind the fabulous flash of magic and the smirking faces of pompous magicians, there is a grand trick waiting to amaze. Opening on May 31st, Louis Leterrier’s Now You See Me is a fashionable and modern magic show in itself. To my satisfaction, what I knew would be a hit-or-miss movie turned out to be a hit. Movies about magic and illusion are often fascinating to begin with, but Now You See Me is surely one of the better ones I’ve seen thus far.

The film shines with phenomenal performances by its lead actors. Jesse Eisenberg is as smart and witty as ever; Isla Fischer is cute and fierce; Woody Harrelson, mean and frank; and Dave Franco, adorable and bursting with star potential. And everyone probably agrees that little to nothing can go wrong when Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are on the team.
 
Mark Ruffalo (a.k.a. the Hulk) is equally incredible as the FBI agent who chases a band of bank-robbing magicians, trailing them closely, but, of course, always one step behind the game. His love interest, played by the Inglorious Basterds heroine Mélanie Laurent, is a French Interpol agent who partnered up with Ruffalo as a detective. Their clashing personalities spark on screen, adding a dash of romance to this surprisingly action-heavy picture. I would have to argue, however, that the love-hate relationship between Eisenberg and Fischer is much more compelling, so much so that it overshadows what should be the film’s central love story.
 
There aren’t too many movies centered on magicians, and so it is easy to compare Now You See Me to other films of this genre. While it is similar to The Illusionist (2006) and The Prestige (2006), these two acclaimed magic movies hover under a dark fog with a little more fantasy and a deeply grim plot. By contrast, Leterrier’s film stays in the light without the overwhelming emotional gravity—it remains sprightly, fun.
 
At times, this movie also reminded me of the Oceans series; it tends to be light and witty, with great actors, great lines, and a few great robberies. What the Oceans trilogy does not have, however, is cinematographer Larry Fong’s arresting visuals of Las Vegas magic shows and heart-racing car chase sequences.
 
The term “trendy” is suitable here. Now You See Me has what a modern, of-the-moment audience wants in a movie: First, it has the wits. Casting Eisenberg was a master stroke – every line he utters seems to speak from a place of intelligence. Wisdom radiates from his facial features. Most of the screenplay is smart and well thought-out as well.
 
The film also has the requisite hyper-polished, glossy look that modern audiences demand of their blockbuster entertainment. This visual style renders the magic, or so-called “misdirection,” as it’s termed in the movie, believable and authentic. Whether the magic is simply a conglomeration of misdirection or not, it seems almost supernatural and makes the viewer want to believe in it.
 
Lastly, and most important of all, is the action. As unexpected as they are, the action scenes are delightful and keep the audience at the edge of their seats. These moments of sleek action are modern and like other energetic blockbusters. And who doesn’t love a good thrill from cars tossing and crashing on a highway?
 
If there is one thing lacking in the film, it is that the ending could have been more powerful. Yes, there is a plot twist, and yes, it is unforeseen, but I can’t quite determine for myself if it is unexpected in a good way. However, considering that movies centered on magic usually have difficulty maintaining accountability for the inner workings of the plot, this one deserves credit for at least making sense of the complicated plot for the viewers.
 
While the movie is not perfect, the overall presentation is certainly enjoyable. It has a great mixture of a sensible plot, solid visuals, romance, action, and mystery—all of which combine to a good amount of fun and thrill. For those who are looking for good, lighthearted entertainment, this film will serve well.

Baz disappoints with his rendition of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

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Expectations were great for Baz Luhrmann’s remake of the classic novel, The Great Gatsby. The movie of the same title was, unfortunately, a flashy extravaganza that submerged and diluted the narrative that would have been beautiful had it been left alone.

It is laudable that the auteur maintained his distinctly stylish and flamboyant cinematography. Only this time the flamboyant was cloyed; despite the sparkles and colors, there was no wowing moment that itched my jaw to drop. Rather, the excess of dazzles only made the movie a pretentious work of an amateur.

Editing further exaggerated the flamboyant color of the movie. Pacing was too quick in the first half that the movie became disconcerting and difficult to follow. One terse shot after another simply threw the pieces of the story at the audience, instead of presenting one smooth and flowing tale. Lurhmann seems to have put an effort to use many exact quotes from the book, which when adapting to crunch a dense plot into a two-hour movie, skipped rapidly and incoherently forward.

Surprisingly, the highly anticipated soundtrack also subtracted from the film. It came across to me as a source of distraction; the amazing soundtrack that I had been replaying for a week was transformed and played at unexpected places. It became noise and distracted the audience away from essential dialogue and narrative.

Another source of distraction was the flashback narrative of Nick Carraway, played by Tobey Maguire. Luhrmann interprets Carraway’s creation of the novel in an original way unseen in the actual literature. The retrospective narrative of Nick (Tobey Maguire) is analogous to Lurhmann’s 2001 film, Moulin Rouge!, where the protagonist tells the story as he writes on his typewriter. Luhrmann seems to have a penchant for such narrative (and it’s great that he followed his gut-feeling), but the retrospection was an unnecessarily dominant and distracting part of the film.

In the end, the film was an overstated and disorganized mush gathered from talented A-list actors, musicians, costume designers, and et cetera. The actors were essentially superb and wonderfully in sync as the characters themselves; the artists had created exciting and catchy tracks specifically for the movie; the costumes represented a fun and vivid 20’s rebellious vibe. Yet, the combined product of such fantastic elements of the film was nothing but a large-scale mess.

The Place Beyond the Pines is unexpectedly an intergenerational family drama

The Place Beyond the pPines

Resembling the narrative of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines (2013) makes the audience turn their heads and whisper, “wait… did that really just happen?” As expected, the two films are no further alike. Yet, it is important to note that this movie is not one that heavily relies on Ryan Gosling and his I’m-a-badass-I-don’t-speak-much character, but one that stands on its own and leaves the audience with a powerful, lasting ending.

The film begins with a long tracking shot revealing the muscular back of Luke Glanton (Gosling). Luke is strikingly similar to the driver that Gosling played in his 2011 film, Drive, as if he is simply reborn in the body of a heavily tattooed motorcyclist. This brilliant opening scene stalls on disclosing the star’s face and continues to film his rugged back as he walks into the motorcycle stunt arena. Cianfrance manages to sneak in Gosling’s stuntman into the globe of steel without breaking up the long take, tricking us into briefly thinking that the producers have lost their minds and thrown Gosling into the dangerous globe of death.

Fortunately, the stuntmen are talented and the film has more of Gosling on screen. Well, enough to make the whole movie trailer on him, anyway. This brilliant opening shot onsets an epic tale of two men and their sons, who cross each other’s paths through time and space. The brief yet significant encounter between Luke and cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), results in an intertwining story of corruption of police and family, drugs, violence, vengeance, and legacy. Gently pulled by the slow-beating music, the story unravels in a seemingly slow but rather rapid pace through the fifteen years of time.

Unable to support his newborn son Jason and lover Romina (Eva Mendes), Luke turns from a motorcycle stunt job to bank robbing as an occupation. He, however, fails to become a loving father when his last and most desperate mission goes awry at the hands of Officer Cross. Luke ignores the warning of his friend Robin—which I contend is also the best line of the film: “If you ride like lightning, you’re going to crash like thunder.” So Luke continues to ride.

Officer Cross, on the other hand, connects deeply with Luke who has a one-year-old son like he does. Fast-forwarding fifteen years from the fathers’ encounter, the narrative transitions into the struggles and collision of the two children. AJ Cross is the unfortunate result of his father’s corruption. Officer Cross has exploited the police corruption to rise in status—meanwhile intentionally avoiding his son, who becomes a spoiled druggie by his lack of attention.

AJ moves in with his father, who is now running for New York State Attorney General. In a new school, AJ meets a new friend named Jason. Fate, a force like no other, joins the sons of the two unfortunate men, and the fathers’ legacy is to set to untangle.

Here I ponder, what happened within these fifteen years that led to such irreparable situation? The consequences of the two distinct men and their corruption are the delinquent activities of AJ and Jason, which become too sad and sickening to watch. Were the passionate loves of the mothers not enough to set their paths straight? The evident lack of a true father is detrimental to the behavior of the sons, and whatever happened during the fifteen years of the time that Cianfrance has chosen to skip over, does not seem to be so important as the legacy that Luke and Avery left behind that one day.

The Place Beyond the Pines is a calm degeneration of family and an inevitable cycle through the span of time. “If only” is a question that circles and lingers in my mind long after I left the theaters. But fate is a powerful tool for the director Cianfrance, and there are no “ifs” in his rulebook. Legacy is fate, and there is only one conclusion to his story.

The creatures in Beautiful Creatures work hard for the beautiful soul

ImageEthan Wate is a teen in high school yearning to escape his small and radically conservative town. Every night, he dreams about a girl that he is convinced is his destiny. The girl reaches her hand out to him but he can neither get closer nor see her face. Meanwhile, there is a rumor that a student from out of town is transferring to his small country school. The new student is Lena Duchannes, a sharp-tongued but witty and beautiful girl. She catches Ethan’s attention in an instant—her aura is awfully familiar like the girl in his dreams. But can Ethan be sure that he is positively fated to be with Lena?

In the conservative town of Gatlin, South Carolina, where the villagers are still stuck in the prideful bubble of the pro-south mentality of the Civil War, the intensifying innocent love begins to unravel the belying dark fantasy. Ethan discovers that Lena and her family are magical creatures called “casters,” who have supernatural powers to control the body and mind of mortals as well as to change weather, create spells, and more. Lena anxiously awaits her sixteenth birthday, which will determine whether her true nature as a caster will be dark or light. She struggles to fight against the dark curse that overshadows her good nature.

A little like The Princess Bride because of its fated-to-love classic story, but more supernatural and nowhere near as good, Beautiful Creatures (2013), directed by Richard LaGravenese, is an adaptation of a book of the same title. Its music, makeup, and computer graphics are individually attractive and delightful, yet they altogether create a film too expressionistic that delivers overt and obvious statements about the story.

Makeup particularly disturbs the actors’ natural acting and eliminates its beauty of subtlety. For example, the makeup of Alice Englert, who plays Lena, gets visibly smokier eyes as she leans toward the “dark” side, even though it is most likely possible for the actress to express this emotion without the help of the makeup team. Thus, the film’s story is not natural and credible as its own world, and the audience remains distant and conscious that the film is simply a film.

The first half of the film boasts great cinematography, beginning with aesthetically pleasing scenes that sweetly portray young love. By the end of the film, however, the use of cinematography becomes vexing and comical. The ultimate fight between the dark and the light is illustrated with overwhelming contrast in music and lighting. The “dark” characters are literally surrounded by pitch darkness and supported by ominous music, which does not create subtle but rather clichéd and obvious difference in characters. The overly symbolic film became frivolous.

On the other hand, the acting of the two leads, Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert, is phenomenal. Right from the beginning of the film, the two actors spark a charming chemistry. If there is one thing that keeps the attention of the audience from straying away from the film, it is waiting to see the unequivocal, star-crossed love to finally come to realization. Their smiles are too adorable to ignore, and their lines are witty when they are not cliché.

One flaw about the actors, however, is that they, ages 23 and 19 respectively, look much too old for their supposed age, 15 or 16. Because age plays a big role in the movie, I could not help but repeatedly question the realism of the movie. Had LaGravenese casted a younger Ethan and Lena, however, I wonder if such sweet young romance could have possibly been created.

Although Beautiful Creatures is not a boring film to watch, it is also not one of the more intelligent films. Rated PG-13, the movie would have fared better had they eliminated the few violent and sexual scenes and downgraded to a PG film. The romance is sweet and the drama is cloyed, and I ponder if the film would have been better off directed to a younger audience.

Gangster Squad charms with colors and gore

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Director Ruben Fleischer delivers a classic shoot-em-up movie with a high body count.

Ruben Fleischer, who, at 38, has a scanty filmography, explores a new genre in his latest directorial effort, Gangster Squad. Rather than illustrating a zombie apocalypse, as he did inZombieland (2009), or a heist gone wrong, as in 30 Minutes or Less (2011), Gangster Squad is a flamboyant shoot-’em-up action movie entwining romance, family, and camaraderie. Many viewers will agree, however, that Fleischer’s style remains his own. With an ensemble full of reputable stars, Fleischer creates a stylistic world of corruption and struggle against evil, set in vibrant 1949 Los Angeles.

In Gangster Squad, a band of cops, ex-cops, and pointer-shooters gathers to form a six-man justice league to tackle the task of overthrowing a brutally powerful gang, thereby endangering themselves and their loved ones. The film’s heroes are played by Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, and Robert Patrick, who together form a well-balanced coalition of rebels. The war is on, but the film does not always make it easy to separate the good from the evil. Fleischer blurs such distinctions; any sort of absolute is nonexistent. Every character in the Gangster Squad world is tainted with blood and violence—even the film’s heroes are merciless killers.

It’s still easy to spot the arch-villain of the film. Mickey Cohen, played by the chameleon-like Sean Penn, is the gang’s heartless leader who continues to seek expansion of his cruelty and control. Cohen calls himself “God” and “owner” of Los Angeles, narcissistic in his acknowledgement of his power. Still, he is greedy for more: He pokes at other gang-regulated cities like Chicago after monopolizing L.A.

Sean Penn perfectly absorbs the character of a menacing on-top criminal. Every one of his intonations consolidates and strengthens his representation of all that is brutal in the film. Near Gangster Squad’s conclusion, however, character intersects with caricature; the effect, despite Penn’s talent, is much too overdone and thus comical, but perhaps this is what is most charming about the auteur Fleischer’s style. I might even argue that the several occasions of deus ex machina in the film are excusable because of this exaggerated style.

Turning to the romantic side of the film, Ryan Gosling plays Sergeant Jerry Wooters, and gives an exceptional performance as the charming, ignorant cop turned violent, vengeful lover. His performance, however, is limited by the cheesiness of his character. As expected, he is the heartthrob at the center of the clichéd romance, playing the chivalrous knight to Grace Faraday (the stunning Emma Stone). The romance between Jerry and Grace develops rapidly but adequately, so that it does not seem forced. The chemistry between Gosling and Stone, who have already worked on a few films together, is natural and still exciting to watch.

As in Zombieland, Fleischer packs his movie with exciting action sequences and, most importantly, violence. Violence is so common and lightly taken in Gangster Squad that the audience is quickly desensitized to death and gore. Some horror-mongers may argue that the film does not include too much violence, but I was disturbed by the unnecessary excess of bloodshed throughout the film. The important distinction that the ones being murdered are humans and not zombies may be why I had a more difficult time accepting the desensitization of violence. Gangster Squad is stylish and fun, but I inevitably ponder whether this film might have been more enjoyable without the gore.