Drawing from the pool of notorious baddies, “Gangster Squad” resurrects mobster Mickey Cohen, casting him as the villain pursued by a unit of Los Angeles cops who break conduct codes and commit mayhem en route to nabbing him. With its top-notch cast and potentially compelling antagonist, the film might have been a vital blend of popcorn and prestige entertainment. Sadly, it’s just another cartoonish actioner.
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The original “Men in Black” was an inspired summer popcorn movie. As Agent J, Will Smith was fleet of foot and mouth, and Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K had a countenance like granite and a delivery like barbed wire. They clashed and complemented each other beautifully.The tricky visual effects didn’t overshadow the characters’ sublime chemistry.
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Fifteen minutes after Josh Brolin met 13-year-old Hailee Steinfeld for the first time, he was pinning her down with a blade to her throat.No, this was not another shocking case of “When Celebrities Attack.” Brolin and Steinfeld were on the set of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “True Grit” remake, which opened Wednesday, and their introduction preceded the rehearsal of one of the movie’s tensest scenes.
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Terse of speech and leathery of scowl, Josh Brolin seems a natural fit as a whiskey-soaked Wild West gunslinger in the unforgiving tradition of Jonah Hex, an ex-Confederate soldier out to avenge the murder of his wife and child. But he, like Hex, deserves a sturdier vehicle than this.
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