Uh-oh.

Nobody should be surprised — least of all Warner Bros. — that  “Gangster Squad” is a terrible movie. Anyone who saw the trailers or heard the industry gossip knew that it was going to be dreadful. It was a guaranteed disaster before the ink dried on the contracts.

But there’s a greater issue with “Gangster Squad” than its failure. The movie is a betrayal of history. It’s clear that when Susan King of The Times starts a story with the absurd statement “… mobster Mickey Cohen ruled Los Angeles in the late 1940s,” that the past —  and the truth — have been obliterated in the public consciousness. More important, “Gangster Squad” is the betrayal of a rare opportunity to do it right.

It may seem like overkill to perform a detailed autopsy on a forgettable costume picture that isn’t even a good popcorn movie. But as dismal as the movie is, there is a larger lesson to be learned about the evolving genre of Los Angeles on film: “Gangster Squad” is significant if only because it breaks the spell that “Chinatown” has cast over period L.A. movies since it came out in 1974. Noah Cross, with his quiet but all-consuming malevolence, has been pushed aside by the profane pipsqueak Mickey Cohen.

[Spoilers ahead.]

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