GANGSTER SQUAD EXPLAINS HOW THE MOB WAS THWARTED IN LA
A nostalgia film for Angelenos, Gangster Squad (directed by Ruben Fleischer) is about the efforts of Mickey Cohen (played by Sean Penn) to control Los Angeles and the unorthodox countermeasures by a high-ranking police officer, William Parker (played by Nick Nolte). The year is 1949. Cohen is the mob boss, who took over after the mysterious assassination of Bugsy Siegel two years earlier. Many police and judges are in the pay of Cohen, who controls drugs, gambling, the sex trade, and is being wired up for the pipeline to racetrack results, which will be such a cash bonanza for Cohen that he will own not just LA but the entire West Coast. Parker presumably has tried Elliot Ness methods to deal with Cohen, but in vain. Now he realizes that the only way to stop the Cohen juggernaut is war – to hire a special squad of police to destroy Cohen’s places of business. Then the Hollywood distortion of reality begins. He approaches John O’Mara (played by Josh Brolin), who joined LAPD after being discharged from the army at the end of World War II and has not forgotten methods of warfare. O’Mara, in turns rounds up a gang of six, stumbles his way in the first caper, but gets smart, thanks to an operation to bug Cohen. Much of the film, thus, involves assaults by the undercover police. O’Mara’s voiceover says that Parker headed LAPD until his death in 1966. Based on the book by Paul Lieberman, the film features police being more violent than Cohen. The film romanticizes the Gangster Squad, which existed before 1949, but fails to report that Cohen was ultimately convicted of tax evasion, sent to Alcatraz, transferred to the federal prison in Atlanta after being assaulted in Alcatraz, released in 1972, and died of cancer in 1976. As for the nostalgia, drawings accompanying credits do more than the sets to remind LA residents of the day when red streetcars and the Hollywoodland sign were still landmarks, as the “land” part of the sign was gone by the end of 1949, and the streetcar tracks were ripped up in the 1960s. MH
A DARK TRUTH EXPOSES HOW EVEN RAINWATER IS DENIED TO RAINFOREST DENIZENS
A Canadian company has purchased water rights from the government to an Ecuadorian rainforest, extracts all water for sale abroad, but a torrential rain overflows the sewage system, causing an outbreak of cholera. Rather than calling upon WHO to stop the epidemic, the water company executive Bruce Swinton (played by Kim Coates) covers up the problem by agreeing to hire an Ecuadorian general to slaughter the townspeople, though Francisco Francis (played by Forest Whitaker) saves several townspeople and goes into hiding. Bruce’s sister Morgan (played by Deborah Kara Unger) has just cut the ribbon for a new building when a man shoots himself in front of her, proclaiming that the company killed his father in Ecuador. Morgan then seeks the truth and soon hires radio talkshow host Jack Begosian (played by Andy García) to go to Ecuador and report on what has been happening. Begosian, a repentant former CIA agent, had put Francis in jail and now sees an opportunity for redemption: He can bring Francis to his radio program to broadcast the truth. The water company’s future is at stake. Although Morgan is a majority stockholder, she cannot abide the massacre. Machinations by the company to stop Begosian ensue, with a predictable but suspenseful ending. Early in the film, the term “great transformation” is explained as the time some 300 years ago when capitalists bought up feudal lands and evicted peasants, who were forced to work in order to afford food and housing that had formerly been provided by feudal lords. The analogy is to ongoing South American Water Wars. But the film does not claim that the story is actually true. What is portrayed is vaguely similar to Chevron v Naranjo, in which Chevron was fined $18 billion for polluting the water of 30,000 Ecuadorian Amazon residents. Directed by Damian Lee, A Dark Truth, has been nominated by the Political Film Society as best film exposé and best film on human rights of 2013. MH