Gangster Rap: Should You See Gangster Squad this Weekend?

It's 1949. The horrors of World War II may be fading in the rearview mirror, but America's cities are in the grip of a new battle—against mobsters building empires based on heroin, whores, and gambling. In Los Angeles, it's not much of a fight: Boxer-turned-bad-boy Mickey Cohen has cornered the vice market with the help of henchmen and policemen on the take.

But not every cop is crooked. Sergeant John O'Mara, a decorated vet, has taken his guerilla-warfare training to the streets, happily busting up one of Cohen's lucrative brothels. When L.A.'s police chief needs someone to go mano a mano against Cohen, O'Mara's clearly the man. Bravely, he accepts the challenge: to build a team of cops who'll operate under the radar and beyond the bounds of the law to break the mob's stranglehold on the city.

If you're looking for Gangster Squad to reinvent the genre, you'll be disappointed: Watching O'Mara recruit his team is like catching a rerun of The Untouchables on TCM because nothing else is on TV. The squad's got all the standard crew—racially, temperamentally, and intellectually diverse, with lesser members getting so little screen time they're unable to fully transcend caricature. Yet their dialogue is witty and well-paced, giving you plenty of opportunity to chuckle in between the periodic hailstorms of bullets. (Apparently, one shootout was supposed to take place in a movie theater, but the scene got scrapped after the Aurora tragedy. You can still see it in the original film trailer.)

A movie like this soars or fails on the strength of the acting, and fortunately, the principals mostly shine. Sean Penn, as Mickey Cohen, doesn't exude malice so much as suck the light from every room, drawing it into the crags and creases of his damaged boxer's face. As his unhappy lover, Emma Stone whipsaws between hardened vamp and dewy-eyed little girl lost, which is exactly what the role demands. It's not hard to see why she sneaks around with O'Mara's main sidekick—a boyishly endearing Ryan Gosling—in search of a sweeter existence.

Lastly, there's James Brolin as O'Mara, oddly less memorable than many in the ensemble. Squinty-eyed and lock-jawed, he's a man who World War II has permanently changed, imbuing him with a lust for violence coupled with a rigid sense of honor. In his own way, he's as ruined as Cohen; he just chooses more socially acceptable ways of channeling his impulses.

It's all enough to keep you entertained, especially against a backdrop of swinging Hollywood nightlife. Wouldn't you love to have a nightclub called Slapsy Maxie's on Harwood Court, complete with an orchestra and sultry chanteuses? I think Waterworks is still vacant ... Chamber of Commerce, get on it.

Deborah Skolnik is a Greenacres mother of two and a senior editor at Parenting magazine.