Around the time of Josh Brolin’s joining Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad, we mused, in that annoying tone of voice we use when we’re always musing stuff, that the project was only a Jeff Bridges away from being one of the most alpha-male actor ensembles in recent memory. Of course, Bridges has yet to sign on, but now Nick Nolte will bring a slightly smokier, differently cured slab of gristle to what could have otherwise been a Bridges role, playing the gruff, Nick Nolte-like chief of police who organizes said gangster squad to bring down Sean Penn’s Mickey Cohen. Of course, the addition of Nolte to a cast that also includes Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena, and Giovanni Ribisi (with Emma Stone and Mireille Enos on its feminine side) not only ups the male gravitas, it adds the potential that Gangster Squad could help to heal the lingering scars of racial prejudice through the occasional fruit-derived insult.
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