Original gangsters
Hollywood retells the true story of a group of cops who worked outside the corrupt establishment to battle a crime boss
Chicago, Detroit and New York are among the major US cities infamous for their mafia culture, but Los Angeles has been able to avoid that notoriety for the most part. One reason can be found in the title of Ruben Fleischer's latest film.
Gangster Squad, based on a book of the same name by former Los Angeles Times writer Paul Lieberman, is an inspired-by-true-events look at how a small group of police officers worked to take down Mickey Cohen, a Jewish former boxer-turned-gangster who tried to foment Los Angeles' underworld in the 1940s and '50s.
A flamboyant character who had shown up in other films, including Bugsy (1991), Cohen was a hard man who loved fashion, rarely wearing the same suit twice, and even owned a haberdashery; he cruised up and down Sunset Strip, and had stripper girlfriends. "He was a celebrity gangster," says Fleischer, Gangster Squad's director-executive producer. "He basked in the glory of being a notorious person."
Cohen was like John Gotti in New York in the '80s, Fleischer says. "You don't mess with him. After he got out of Alcatraz, he lived on his fame as a gangster in Los Angeles."
Top-billed Sean Penn is satisfyingly menacing as Cohen. As it turned out, Penn - who was born in and grew up in Los Angeles - knew people who knew Cohen and spent a lot of time talking to them. "Sean took the parts of Mickey's life he connected with," says Fleischer.
Penn initially turned down the role because of scheduling conflicts. The filmmakers then offered the part to Josh Brolin but he wanted to play John O'Mara, a police sergeant tasked with recruiting the other members of the gangster squad.