Gangster Squad is a 2013 American crime action-thriller film directed by Ruben Fleischer and written by Will Beall, loosely based on a non-fiction book by Paul Lieberman. The film stars Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, and Sean Penn. Set in 1949, a group of real-life LAPD officers and detectives called the Gangster Squad are assigned to bring down crime kingpin Mickey Cohen.