Gangster Squad (2013) on Netflix
R20131h 53mActionCrimeDramaThriller
In 1949 Los Angeles, Mickey Cohen runs the city's rackets with bribed judges and police. Sergeant John O'Mara is chosen to lead a covert squad of officers who work without badges.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.7/10230,183 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes30%
Trailer
Plot summary
By 1949, Mickey Cohen has built the most powerful criminal operation in California, with judges and police in his pay and witnesses eliminated. Chief Bill Parker puts Sergeant John O'Mara, a World War II veteran, in charge of a covert unit that works outside the law. With help from his pregnant wife, Connie, O'Mara brings in Detective Coleman Harris, wire-tapper Conway Keeler and sharpshooter Max Kennard; Kennard's partner, Navidad Ramirez, follows the squad and is allowed to join. Detective Jerry Wooters, O'Mara's friend, turns the offer down. Wooters keeps close to Jack Whalen, his informant inside Cohen's organization, and meets Grace Faraday, Cohen's etiquette coach, and the two begin a secret relationship.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Gangster Squad (2013)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In the wake of the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, on July 20, the trailer was pulled from running before films and from television, and removed from Apple's trailer site and YouTube, because of a scene where characters fire submachine guns at movie-goers through the screen of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
- Two weeks later, on August 22, the cast reunited in Los Angeles to completely re-shoot the film's main action sequence, the new version set in a Chinatown where the gangsters strike back at the Squad. Since the original cinematographer was no longer available, Caleb Deschanel shot it, and Josh Brolin said he was not sad the original scene was cut.
- William Parker was only 45 in 1949, not in his 70s like Nick Nolte, and he died at 61 in 1966. He also did not create the Gangster Squad: it was created by Chief Clemence B. Horrall in 1946, largely as an effort to improve the city's image.
SPOILER
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, though he was indeed attacked with a lead pipe in prison, as the film depicts.SPOILER
Cohen's bodyguard Johnny Stompanato was not shot as the film depicts: he lived until 1958, when he was stabbed by the daughter of his girlfriend Lana Turner.SPOILER
The character of Max Kennard was based on the real-life lawman Doug “Jumbo” Kennard, who had already retired and was not shot in the line of duty as in the film; he died after crashing his car while driving under the influence of alcohol.SPOILER
In the film, Conwell Keeler is the first member of the Squad to be killed. In real life he outlived all of the Squad's other members, dying of a stroke in 2012.
