Josh Brolin and Sean Penn square off in this photo from Gangster Squad

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Is this a night of firsts? Seems so.

For this article, we have our first real look at Ruben Fleischer’s GANGSTER SQUAD. Behold Josh Brolin sticking a gun in the face of Sean Penn. The film boasts a pretty impressive cast aside from Brolin and Penn: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Nick Nolte, Michael Pena, and Giovanni Ribisi. GANGSTER SQUAD is an action-drama about the 1940s cops who battled Mickey Cohen’s mob for control of the City of Angels.

Fleischer gave more details: “We’ve taken some creative license but tried to stay true to the original story and characters as much as possible. O’Mara (Josh Brolin), our lead character, has just come back from fighting the Nazis with all these ideals after seeing America at its greatest. And he’s come home and there’s a gangster running his city. While he was gone, Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) took over and he turned the streets of L.A. into a battle zone. In our story, O’ Mara takes the lead of the Gangster Squad, a vigilante police force that fights the gangsters on their own terms, and the battle between them is for the future of Los Angeles: whether it’s going to become corrupt and run by this bunch of gangsters or these guys who fought for these values and want L.A. to be the shining beacon on the west coast that it was always intended to be. Ryan’s character also went to war, but when he came back, he was a little disillusioned. So he’s more on the fence, hanging out in nightclubs and hanging out with guys who might be gangsters. He’s less clear on where he stands in terms of standing up against Mickey Cohen.”

Source: EW

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