L.A. Confidential

• Title:  L.A. Confidential
• Director:  Curtis Hanson
• Date:  1997
• Studio:  Warner Brothers, Regency Entertainment
• Genre:  Drama, Mystery, Film Noir
• Cast:  Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, David Straithairn, Simon Baker (Credited as Simon Baker Denny)
• Format:  Widescreen, color
• DVD Format:  R1, NTSC

"Come to Los Angeles... there are jobs a plenty and land is cheap..."  -- Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito)


"I admire you as a policeman, particularly your adherance to violence as an adjunct to the job." -- Police Captain Dudley Smith to Lt. Bud White


"How's it going to look in your report?" -- Det. Lt. Exley
"It'll look like justice.  That's what the man got, justice." -- Lt. Bud White

LA Confidential is a brilliant modern film noir.  The film weaves deep layered characters into a complex plot of police corruption, graft, drugs, and murder.  All the actors give brilliant performances.  Russell Crowe, in an very early role, is Lt. Bud White, police captain Smith's "enforcer" with a soft spot for abused women.  Watching his journey from tough guy and bruiser to someone who actually starts to figure out what's going on and who stops just following orders and starts to think -- even when solving the case leads right back to the police department -- is a joy in this film.  Guy Pearce is the college-educated "new cop" who isn't afraid to testify against other dirty cops, as long as it allows him to get ahead.  But he too has to make decisions -- does he "do what he's told, and reap his reward" or does he follow a more difficult path and expose the corruption he and Bud have uncovered?  And brilliant as always Kevin Spacey as "Hollywood Jack" Vincennes, who's a technical advisor on the TV cop drama "Badge of Honor" (think "Dragnet") and partners with tabloid reporter Sid Hudgens (Danny Devito) accepting payments to pass along info about upcoming busts so the reporter can photograph them.  Sid, a pioneer in bottom-feeding tabloid journalism, and publisher of the tabloid "Hush-Hush" regularly gives Vincennes gifts and bribes, as well as passing along information.

The film weaves a complicated plot, starting with the beating, in the LA lock-up of several Mexican-Americans, resulting in the expulsion of several bad cops and meeting our characters and seeing how they react.  Vincennes is  transferred between departments and temporarily taken off  "Badge of Honor" as Technical Advisor.  White refuses to roll on his partner, or become a snitch.  Exley not only offers up info as a snitch, but gives advice on how to get to other cops, though this gets him a promotion - it doesn't endear him to the other cops.  After "Bloody Christmas" but before the trial even starts, there's a mass shooting at the Nite Owl coffee shop, one of the victims is White's disgraced partner.  The hunt for the killers leads to three young black men, who are brought in, questioned, escape, and then are caught again and killed.

However,  all three of our main characters soon realize that the three men, though guilty of kidnapping and raping a young Mexican girl, aren't guilty of the Nite Owl killings.  And, again, the investigation, though it also involves a millionaire who's running a high-class call girl outfit of girls "cut to look like movie stars" and heroin, ultimately leads right back to the police department.  I don't want to spoil the ending for those of you reading this who haven't seen this brilliant Noir film.

This film starts with a sarcastic voice-over, by Danny Devito, describing the bright, sunny, perfect California that's being sold as an image -- only to expose a dark, dirty, and very corrupt underbelly.  Irony underlies a lot of the picture (such as showing the ground-breaking ceremony for the Santa Monica freeway "LA to the beach in 20 minutes").  But the characters also present an opening image that changes throughout the film -- Bud White starts as a tough, an enforcer, a brutal cop, albeit with a soft spot for battered women and kids, but he develops, putting together a lot of the clues leading to an explanation of  what really is going on.  Exley seems like the college-educated "new cop" who won't be able to hack it in the field - yet, he also manages to prove his smarts and his investigative chops, as well as his ability to handle violence when needed.  Vincennes, "Hollywood Jack" has somehow lost his way.  Asked, "Why'd you become a cop?" He answers, "I can't remember".  Jack is like the tough, hard-boiled, cynical protagonists of a lot of Classic Noir.  Yet, like those protagonists, his journey in the film is to discover that he can't turn a blind eye to the corruption around him any more, especially when he inadvertently causes a young male actor/hooker to get murdered.  There's more to Jack than the smoothness one first sees.

The film is set in the 1950s, but the historical detail, though there, is not at the forefront of the film.  The score is fantastic from Jerry Goldsmith's original instrument themes, to the use of period music by Johnny Mercer and Dean Martin.  The film also gets physically darker, as the characters discover the true darkness around them.

I highly, highly recommend this film.  It has brilliant acting, brilliant writing, a dense, complex plot, and the feel of a true Noir film, but made in a modern style.  The film is very intelligent -- both the writing and dialogue and the plot.  And, though violent and bloody at times, it's still quite, quite worth seeing.

Recommendation:  See it!
Rating:  5 of 5 Stars
Next Film:  League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen