Josh Brolin and Sean Penn in 'Gangster Squad'

Director of Zombieland, Ruben Fleischer is now tackling the gangster and film noir genres with Gangster Squad.  Ambitious especially considering he directed Bill Murray back to the funny side in a zombie film that wasn't Shaun of the Dead.  The film stars Josh Brolin and Sean Penn and we have our official first look.

Gangster Squad is described as "an action-drama about the 1940s cops who battled Mickey Cohen’s mob for control of the City of Angels, is the perfect mesh of the two."  The photo is from the production shoot, where Fleisher is "readying a violent shootout on Hollywood Boulevard on day 67 of filming, Fleischer discussed the humbling effects of filming at the city’s most famous landmarks, the amazing Sean Penn, and why audiences are ready to embrace Josh Brolin as a hero."

See the photo below, thanks to Entertainment Weekly:

Here's a quick excerpt of what Fleischer had to say with EW (you can then read the full interview here):

We’ve taken some creative license but tried to stay true to the original story and characters as much as possible.  O’Mara (Josh Brolin), our lead character, has just come back from fighting the Nazis with all these ideals after seeing America at its greatest.  And he’s come home and there’s a gangster running his city.  While he was gone, Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) took over and he turned the streets of L.A. into a battle zone.  In our story, O’ Mara takes the lead of the Gangster Squad, a vigilante police force that fights the gangsters on their own terms, and the battle between them is for the future of Los Angeles: whether it’s going to become corrupt and run by this bunch of gangsters or these guys who fought for these values and want L.A. to be the shining beacon on the west coast that it was always intended to be.

...

Ryan’s character also went to war, but when he came back, he was a little disillusioned.  So he’s more on the fence, hanging out in nightclubs and hanging out with guys who might be gangsters.  He’s less clear on where he stands in terms of standing up against Mickey Cohen.

Personally, who doesn't want to see Sean Penn as the villain and Josh Brolin as the hero.  Certainly a change from what both actors have been respectively portraying.  Not to mention that Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Nick Nolte are starring in the film.

Are you excited to see Fleischer's Gangster Squad?  Even though the title seems pedantic to the film's intriguing era of American history.