Gangster Squad

It's a lazy, watered down gangster flick that is not nearly as clever or as new as it attempts to be.

Gangster Squad is slight pulp fiction that offers all-out, balls-to-the-wall action riddled with as many clichés as bullets.

Those who are calling it shallow and cartoony and clichéd are missing the point. It is all of those things, purposefully - gleefully, even.

Gangster Squad looks the part, but it's so superficial it practically evaporates before our eyes.

Some of the clothes and makeup feel as glossy as paint, but, those aside, we seem to browsing through a display of secondhand goods.

"Gangster Squad" never stops reminding you that everyone in it thinks it's awesome that they're making it. You won't feel the same awe watching it.

It may look pretty, and it may act tough, but Gangster Squad is as dumb as they come.

What a shame that such a talented cast of actors, not to mention the attractive costumes and gorgeous production design, go to waste on this all-too-familiar story.

[A] depressingly by-the-numbers script.

Penn wants to be De Niro and Pacino simultaneously, but instead emerges ridiculous, forgetting his accent and tripping over his unnatural, obligatory mercilessness.