Forties-something mobster yarn that shoots from the hip

There is nothing like a dame, and the seductress at the centre of this stylish crime thriller certainly sends temperatures soaring.

She beds two men on opposite sides of the law and ignites a powder keg of jealousy that threatens to raze 1940s Los Angeles to its corrupt foundations.

Based on the real-life battle for the streets of California’s most populated city, Gangster Squad conjures memories of The Untouchables with its tug of war between men who live by a badge and hoodlums who operate with their own twisted sense of morality.

Disappointingly, the film lacks the finely-detailed characters and dramatic tension of Brian De Palma’s Prohibition-era drama.

It also lacks a centrepiece sequence at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, which originally depicted gunmen shooting indiscriminately at an audience from behind the screen.

In the wake of the shooting at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, film-makers chose to remove this scene entirely and added a newly-conceived gunfight on the streets of Chinatown.

The bloodbath has gone but the picture doesn’t skimp on the brutality.

In a wince-inducing opening salvo, a henchman is tethered between two cars which screech off in opposite directions and pull him in two.

The maniacal kingpin behind this bloodshed is one-time boxer Mickey Cohen (Penn), who rules over Los Angeles with his gang.

Police chief Bill Parker (Nolte) is powerless to stop the rise of this criminal fraternity, so he approaches Sergeant John O’Mara (Brolin) to establish a covert team of officers, who are willing not only to bend the law but also to break it in order to crush Cohen.

O’Mara recruits his good friend Sergeant Jerry Wooters (Gosling) and cops Rocky Washington (Mackie), Conway Keeler (Ribisi) and Max Kennard (Patrick) for this dangerous assignment as part of the newly-formed Gangster Squad.

In turn, Kennard introduces a sharp-shooting protege, Navidad Ramirez (Pena), and the scene is set for a battle royal between the team and the hoodlums.

The mission is compromised when suave ladies’ man Wooters falls under the spell of Cohen’s squeeze, actress Grace Faraday (Stone), and takes her to bed.

One night of lust signs Grace’s death warrant, should Cohen ever discover her betrayal.

Gangster Squad trades style over substance but the dramatisation of bullet-riddled history has its undeniable pleasures.

Brolin and Gosling are solid and the latter continues to catalyse fizzing on-screen chemistry with Stone after the sexy rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Penn chews scenery with obvious relish but no subtlety, while impeccable production design evokes the era when sharp-suited men traded bullets and polished one-liners beneath the iconic Hollywoodland sign.