Normally, whenever Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling team up for a movie, you can’t keep people away from the movie theater – unless that movie is Gangster Squad. For projects like Crazy Stupid Love and La La Land, Stone and Gosling are the kind of classical movie stars audiences have always loved. They’re super funny, easy on the eyes, and they have really good chemistry together. No wonder both films have inspired as many GIFs as a popular CW TV show. However, not everything this duo touches turn into gold. In between Crazy Stupid Love and La La Land, the duo headlined another movie that the whole world has chosen to forget ever exist: Gangster Squad.


Unlike Avatar, Gangster Squad really did have no impact on pop culture, with its lack of anything resembling a fanbase made all the more apparent by how enduringly popular Gosling and Stone’s other two collaborations are. But why? How did Gangster Squad become such a pop culture footnote?


What Is ‘Gangster Squad’ About?

Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen firing a gun in Gangster Squad
Image via Warner Bros.

Like most of the planet, those reading this piece likely have no prior exposure to Gangster Squad. This Ruben Fleischer directorial effort – yes, this crime drama was helmed by the director of Venom, Zombieland, and 30 Minutes or Less is spurred by the reign of Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), a crime boss destroying Los Angeles in the late 1940s. Cohen’s influence and power are seemingly limitless, so some unique tactics are going to be required to take him down. Thus, a new secret police unit is formed (the titular Gangster Squad) led by John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), a man often accompanied by Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling). Also in play is an on-again-off-again lover of Cohen, Grace Faraday (Emma Stone), who eventually becomes a love interest for Wooters.

RELATED: From ‘Drive’ to ‘Blade Runner 2049’: 10 Essential Ryan Gosling Movies

Weirdly, Gangster Squad is, conceptually at least, rooted in similar creative ambitions as the other two Gosling/Stone vehicles. Like Crazy Stupid Love and La La Land, Gangster Squad is firmly rooted in a classic movie genre, in this case, gangster movies. Stone and Gosling just fit so snugly into retro aesthetics and Gangster Squad is clearly aware of this. Like Crazy Stupid Love, Gangster Squad surrounds these then-newer movie stars with a stacked ensemble of veteran actors. If you still hadn’t caught up with Easy A or Lars and the Real Girl in 2013, that’s OK, Brolin or Penn can work as the movie stars that lure you to the theater to see Gangster Squad.

How Emma Stone & Ryan Gosling’s ‘Gangster Squad’ Performances Are Different

Ryan Gosling as Jerry Wooters, Michael Peña as Officer Navidad Ramirez, and Robert Patrick as Officer Max Kennard in Gangster Squad
Image via Warner Bros.

The similarities between Gangster Squad and other movies anchored by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are minimal, but the differences, oh boy. They are endless. For starters, Emma Stone isn’t a significant player in Gangster Squad. She’s around to play a very generic love interest role, the film’s screenplay showing little interest in subverting the gender norms for lady characters in classic gangster movies. This alone makes it clear why Gangster Squad didn’t take off like Love or Land. Stone has proven time and time again that she can do everything from Yorgos Lanthimos movies to unforgettable cameos in comedies like Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and everything in between. If you’re going to sideline that kind of talent, you’re already starting off on the wrong foot.

Stone isn’t the only one shortchanged here, though. Like her, Gosling has proven himself a gifted actor when it comes to comedies. Just watch an SNL sketch like Papyrus or any of his countless hysterical moments from The Nice Guys and you can see what a gift Gosling has for both humorous physicality and comic timing. On top of all that, he’s proven to be a strong dramatic player in projects like Half-Nelson or Drive. Gangster Squad has two young actors who can handle so many different kinds of tones and aesthetics. Naturally, it then chooses to have both Gosling and Stone inhabit stifled characters with barely any personality to speak of. No wonder people are much more prone to watching these tap dance the night away in La La Land.

It also doesn’t help that Gangster Squad isn’t a bubbly enjoyable movie like the other two Gosling/Stone movies. Crazy Stupid Love is something friends pop into the DVD player to watch for the umpteenth time so that they can quote their favorite lines. La La Land tunes like “Another Day of Sun” or “Someone in the Crowd” are a better way to inject energy into your veins than any cup of coffee. Even if those movies aren’t your personal cup of tea, it’s easy to see why people have grown attached to those movies and, by proxy, the performances of Stone and Gosling within those features. These actors have become associated with movies that can lift your soul and put a pep in your step.

By contrast, what’s in there to make Gangster Squad enjoyable or entertaining? It lacks the polish, excitement, or unforgettable score of similar crime movies like The Untouchables, The whole movie looks shockingly drab (not helped by such flat cinematography by Dion Beebe), lacking the bright colors and vibrancy that peppered La La Land. It can’t even function as a thrilling action movie, thanks to the lackluster direction and editing that hampers any scene where the bullets are flying. People have gravitated toward the other Gosling/Stone star vehicles because they’re easily digestible and exceedingly entertaining. The murky and suffocatingly slow Gangster Squad had no hope of living up to that aesthetic or carving out its own admirable identity.

Who Is ‘Gangster Squad’s Target Audience?

Emma Stone as Grace Faraday in Gangster Squad
Image via Warner Bros.

Perhaps the most important reason why Gangster Squad didn’t take off like the other Gosling/Stone movies, though, is simply who went out and saw this crime drama. Though I’m having trouble finding any concrete data on gender demographics for its opening weekend at the box office, it’s safe to say that if the wide-release debut of Zero Dark Thirty (which occurred the same weekend as Squad’s premiere) attracted 59% male moviegoers then Squad also largely serviced guys being dudes.

That’s an important distinction because the other two Gosling/Stone features belonged to genres that are largely associated with women moviegoers. Now, breaking anything down as “girl” or “boys” movies is utterly preposterous (starting with the fact that gender itself is a construct), anyone can like any kind of film no matter the gender they identify as. Plus, as the large fanbase of trans women who love The Irishmen can attest, crime movies with largely male casts can still score lady devotees.

However, Crazy Stupid Love and La La Land do inhabit genres that are known for resonating with women and queer men, target demographics that didn’t have much to latch onto when watching Gangster Squad. It’s not even necessarily that “guns=turn-off for girls”, but rather that the shallow drama and lack of interesting themes within Gangster Squad offered up nothing that more marginalized viewers could become absorbed in. That’s important to note since it’s those very same viewers that have helped spread memes about Love and Land far and wide across the internet, in the process lengthening the shelf life of those motion pictures. Once Gangster Squad failed to make an impact with these groups, its box office and long-term pop culture fate were sealed.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are extraordinary actors on their own merits, but they’ve proven to be so fun together in most of their silver screen exploits. Emphasis on “most of.” Gangster Squad is the glaring exception to Gosling and Stone’s hot streak. The only thing of value to come from its existence is in helping one appreciate all the more the qualities that make Gosling and Stone flourish as lead actors. Just like how you crave water more than ever when you’re stranded in the desert, people watching Gangster Squad will doubtlessly be yearning for the virtues of La La Land or Gosling’s best work on SNL.



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