UK Release Date: 9th November 2012.

The Gangster Squad is an upcoming crime drama chronicling the LAPD’s fight to keep the East Coast Mafia, led by Mickey Cohen, out of Los Angeles in the 1940s and 50s.

Ruben Fleischer is at the helm of The Gangster Squad and while he may be inexperienced in the genre (his previous directorial outings being comedies Zombieland and 30: Minutes or Less) the cast is star studded. Taking the lead as Mickey Cohen is the brilliant Sean Penn and the LAPD officer charged with stopping him is Josh Brolin. Support comes in the form of Hollywood hot property Ryan Gosling, the wonderful Emma Stone, Nick Nolte, Giovanni Ribisi and Anthony Mackie.

This is an absolutely fantastic trailer and is a brilliant advert for the film. It clearly defines the opposing characters (Penn and Brolin), it provides a great insight of the sort of action and tone of the film and provides a bit of comic relief in the form of Gosling’s character. I think that The Gangster Squad looks like a fantastic film and this trailer has certainly peaked my interest.

The crime genre is a timeless one and audiences are always going to be interested in it. Two of the greatest films of all time were gangster flicks, The Godfather and Goodfellas, but while the more recent Public Enemies and American Gangster failed to make any real waves in the film industry both were well received both critically and commercially. Success is surely on the cards for The Gangster Squad.