The freshly released still of the crime drama movie features Brolin's John O'Mara looking furious while pointing a revolver at Penn's Mickey Cohen, who doesn't seem to be frightened at all.
- Dec 10, 2011
AceShowbiz - The first official look at Sean Penn and Josh Brolin in "The Gangster Squad" has been unleashed via Entertainment Weekly. The image sees Brolin's John O'Mara showing off an angry look while aiming a revolver at Penn's Mickey Cohen, who seems to be surrendering to O'Mara.
Explaining the scene featured in the still, director Ruben Fleischer said, "Ultimately it's the story between these two guys. It's Josh and Sean who face off at the end after a big gun battle between the Gangster Squad and Cohen and his men."
"O'Mara catches up to Cohen and Sean mockingly says, 'Okay, copper, take me in'," the director continued. "It ends in a fistfight between Cohen and O'Mara, and it was a pretty epic sequence to film between Josh and Sean."
During the chat, Fleischer also shared the basic premise of the crime drama movie, which is based on Paul Lieberman's articles in the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "It's a good leaping -off point," said the filmmaker. "We've taken some creative license but tried to stay true to the original story and characters as much as possible."
Fleischer further explained about the plot details, revealing, "O'Mara, 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 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," he said.
The 37-year-old director additionally opened up about Ryan Gosling's character, Sgt. Jerry Wooters. "Ryan's character also went to war, but when he came back, he was a little disillusioned," he said.
"So he's more on the fence, hanging out in nightclubs and hanging out with guys who might be gangsters," added Fleischer. "He's less clear on where he stands in terms of standing up against Mickey Cohen. But he finds himself in a love triangle with Cohen and Emma Stone's femme fatale character."
To open in U.S. theaters on October 19, 2012, "Gangster Squad" is also supported by Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Patrick, Nick Nolte, Troy Garity and Michael Pena.
