Review: L.A. Confidential

Set in LA in the early 50s, and focussing on three cops of varying degrees of morality. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is an uber-intense ‘thug’ used mostly for strong-arm jobs, who has a particular distaste for women-beaters. His polar opposite is bespectacled, second-generation cop Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), whose straight-arrow demeanour has earned him few friends, and his willingness to rat on fellow cops, has likely earned him many enemies. Then there’s ‘Hollywood’ Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a cop and technical advisor to a popular “Dragnet”-style show, a gig he holds near and dear to his heart. Jack’s also in cahoots with Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito), a gleefully sleazy reporter of a trashy gossip mag called ‘Hush Hush’, as they set-up celebrity busts. James Cromwell plays the Irish-American police captain Dudley Smith, who is like a paternal figure to Exley, as he knew his father, and advises him on changing his image if he wants to be a better cop (First tip? Lose the glasses, poindexter!). Anyhoo, a massacre at a coffee shop sees a popular, but corrupt cop (Graham Beckel, as White’s partner) dead and three young black men are arrested for it, even though no one really believes the case to be this open and shut. For instance, one suspects that high class pimp Pierce Patchett (an oily David Strathairn) at least knows something he’s not letting on about. He’s the guy who has his girls cut up like movie stars, leading to one hilarious scene with Exley and Vincennes where the former walks up to Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato and accuses her of being ‘made-up’ to look like Lana Turner. Spacey’s facial expression in the scene is priceless. Kim Basinger plays one of Patchett’s girls (who is made up to look like Veronica Lake), who becomes involved with both White and Exley. Ron Rifkin plays a swishy DA, and Simon Baker (yup, it’s an Aussie triple-threat, folks!) an up-and-coming actor manipulated by Hudgens and Vincennes.

 

Although not quite noir (it’s in colour for starters), this superlatively cast 1997 Curtis Hanson (glossed-up B-thrillers like the clichéd “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” and the not-bad “The River Wild”) film is an interesting, incredibly sleazy and engrossing yarn no matter the genre. A mixture of Hollywood and noir, it frankly deserved to beat the sinking ship for the Best Picture award at the Oscars that year.

 

Aussies Crowe (who is in full-on powder keg Hando-with-a-badge mode here), and especially Pearce (who acts out of his skin here) lead the way with outstanding, star-making turns, and Simon Baker obviously got noticed in a smaller role. Spacey is brilliant in one of his best-ever turns as an image conscious and yes, dirty cop but one who starts to develop a conscience. He’s also one of the biggest sources of humour in the film, particularly the aforementioned ‘Lana Turner’ scene. Danny DeVito scores in a role seemingly tailor-made for him, also fine are an unusually sleazy David Strathairn, a perfectly cast Ron Rifkin, and avuncular, authoritative Cromwell (in probably his best-ever role and performance). DeVito is particularly essential as he narrates the opening of the film, letting us know immediately how scummy and phony L.A. is here. The sleaziness, violence, and messiness of the whole thing is one of the film’s finest qualities. White frames people he thinks are guilty, Vincennes is clearly not clean, hell even Exley gets a little trigger-happy at times, despite being clean as a sheet. However, it’s not only the cops who are bad here. It’s the world they’re living in, it taints one and all with its foul stench.

 

Strangely, the one performer to earn an Oscar for their performance was Kim Basinger, who despite being somewhat physically well-suited to the role, is merely adequate (as she almost always is) and constantly upstaged by everyone and everything else. I mean let’s face it, intense Crowe (frighteningly volcanic at times), and the scene-stealing Pearce (as the kind of humourless boy scout every other cop here hates), sardonic and cynical Spacey, and sleazy DeVito are far more memorable here. That said, it’s still probably Basinger’s best performance to date and none of the other nominees that year deserved an Oscar, so there is that I suppose. Kudos to whoever decided to employ the great Jerry Goldsmith (“Planet of the Apes”, “The Omen”), composer for the score of the classic “Chinatown”, as this is essentially “Chinatown” filtered through the Golden Years of Hollywood (with a little of “The Untouchables” thrown in) and Goldsmith’s Oscar-nominated score is a similarly low-key one as he performed for that 70s neo-noir classic. It’s not Goldsmith’s most original score, but I think that’s kinda the damn point.

 

Scripted by a deservedly Oscar-winning Hanson and Brian Helgeland (“Payback”), from the novel by James Ellroy (“Cop”), one of the best things about this terrific yarn is watching how they manage to bring the three main cops (Vincennes, White, and Exley) together despite Exley in particular being on everyone else’s shit list for much of the film. It may not be the equal of “Chinatown”, but this is the late Curtis Hanson’s one significant contribution to cinema. The best film of 1997, it’s a truly entertaining, sleazy yarn with rich characters and performances. It holds up excellently after 20 years, too. Yep, it’s 20 years old.

 

Rating: B+