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Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2012: #94. The Gangster Squad

Among the very few studio projects on this top 100 list, we’re picking this one for the obvious dream cast (Gosling, Penn, Brolin) and the era that it is set in (less than a decade before L.A. Confidential). Our guys with guns guilty pleasure of the year is helmed by Ruben Fleischer – this is his third outing after Zomebieland and 30 Minutes or Less.

Eric Lavallée

Published on January 4, 2012

#94. The Gangster Squad

Director: Ruben Fleischer
Writer(s): Will Beall
Producers: Dan Lin (The Box), Kevin McCormick and Michael Tadross
Distributor: Warner Bros.

The Gist: Scripted by Will Beall, and based on L.A. Times’ recent seven-part series “Tales From the Gangster Squad”, this explores Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, Brooklyn-born mob king Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) runs the show in this town, reaping the ill-gotten gains from the drugs, the guns, the prostitutes and—if he has his way—every wire bet placed west of Chicago…(more)

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Josh Pence, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Giovanni Ribisi

List Worthy Reasons…: Among the very few studio projects on this top 100 list, we’re picking this one for the obvious dream cast (Gosling, Penn, Brolin) and the era that it is set in (less than a decade before L.A. Confidential). Our guys with guns guilty pleasure of the year is helmed by Ruben Fleischer – this is his third outing after Zomebieland and 30 Minutes or Less.

Release Date/Status?: Warner Bros. is releasing the pic on October 19th.

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Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).