Gangster Squad did not take advantage of its all-star cast, but was enjoyable enough to download someday as a rental. The 1949 story was about Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) who worked to build an empire that would take over all off-track-betting from the Pacific to the Mississippi. LAPD Chief “Whiskey Bill” Parker (Nick Nolte) pulled a task force together headed by Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), to bring Mickey down. O’Mara handpicked the team with his wife’s help and started banging heads before they were ready or trained.

While the film fired off more bullets in the climax than the action required, the story had a softer edge like the ABC series Castle, written by the same screenwriter, Will Beall. The softer edge might also be attributed to producers Kevin McCormick (The Lucky One) and Michael Tadross (Arthur).

This shoot’em up was R-rated for strong violence and language, which mostly took place in the second half of the film. Emma Stone did a great job playing Grace Faraday, Ryan Gosling’s love interest, but her scenes were designed more as eye-candy than plot or character development.

Sean Penn was the greatest disappointment, but not due to poor acting. He excelled as Mickey, but deserved a far meatier role than this story allowed. His fake nose was believable, but it wasn’t necessary given the soft TV oriented screenplay.

One scene was completely removed in order to soften the film and a replacement shot. The original scene depicted a group of men breaking through a movie screen and shooting up the audience. Once the news hit with the Aurora, CO Dark Knight tragedy, the film was shelved until January so the scene could be replaced.

Overall, Warner Brother’s attempt at bringing back the studio’s series of gangster films never left the ground except for those who like the bland gangster stories from their grandparents youth. In my mind the rebooting of this dusty franchise failed to capture the contemporary audience, for which it was intended.

James Cameron was an active producer in the making of Andrew Adamson’s 3D movie. He oversaw all the 3D camera work and even was on the rigging high up in the rafters, while Adamson stayed on the ground inspiring the talent with his vision.

The film is a work of art that is built on a simple story, which draws from  “O,” “Mystère,” The Beatles – Love,” “Viva Elvis,” and other Cirque Du Soleil shows. It opens with Mia (Erica Kathleen Linz), a young woman who seeks to escape from her dull life. She enters a circus tent and becomes infatuated with a performing aerialist (Igor Zaripov). When their eyes meet, he loses concentration and falls into a vortex of swirling sand. Mia attempts to help him, but into another world with him. Mia and the aerialist become separated and search for each other in this fantastic place.

The performers in the film receive 5-stars for their skills and abilities. Unfortunately, the thin storyline was only put in place to connect the incredible performances drawn from each of the noteworthy Cirque Du Soleil shows and resulted in some dull moments.

For those who haven’t seen a live Cirque Du Soleil performance, the film is ideal and relatively inexpensive, as it gives highlights from several of their shows. For those who have seen one or two live shows, by the end of the first act you might realize that the film doesn’t live up to the impact of a live performance, even though you will be captivated by how close the camera allows you to get.