***SPOILERS***
I thought LA Confidential the best film of 1997, infinitely better than Titanic, which made a clean sweep at the Oscars, and better even than the same year's The Sweet Hereafter. At long last, an intelligent mainstream movie, one that came from a major studio but didn't have a script directed at 9 year olds. In fact, it would be hard to pick out that LA Confidential is from a mainstream studio - there no big stars, no movie openers - instead there is a reasonably well-known and remarkably talented cast; the film has a complex plot, a sharp, clever script, and no clear moral black and whites: we have to use our brain and think about our own values instead of being told who the good and bad guys are.
Based on James Ellroy's novel, Curtis Hanson's film is set in 50s Hollywood, where the glamour and glitz is countered by a dark, seamy underworld of mob rule and murder. The taking down of mob boss Micky Cohen leads to a power vacuum, followed by an internecine turf war between other shadowy crime figures. Against this background we follow three very different cops as they attempt to solve a particularly gruesome crime - a massacre at the Nite Owl cafe in which a crooked cop was killed. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is flashy and none too principled. He is technical adviser to a Dragnet-style TV show, Badge of Honour, and bolsters his celebrity cop image by dealing with the editor of a trashy gossip magazine, Sid Hudgens (Danny De Vito). Hudgens sets stars up in compromising positions and then Jack arrests them: he gets the credit and Hudgens gets the photographs for his magazine. In direct contrast is Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), a straight arrow cop whose dedication to playing by the rules is matched only by his boundless ambition. His colleagues despise him for ratting on them when they beat up prisoners during a drunken Christmas party. Finally there is Bud White (Russell Crowe), a brooding, silent strongman, whose personal obsession is punishing guys who hit women (go Bud!). He hates Exley more than most, since his partner, the cop killed in the Nite Owl, was sacked due to Exley's testimony about the party. Above all these is their chief, Dudley Smith, a genial Irishman who would do anything to get a conviction, if he knew in his heart the suspect was guilty. Other characters in this complicated drama include Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn), a millionaire socialite and high-class pimp, and Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), one of Patchett's hookers, all of whom are surgically altered to look like different Hollywood movie stars. Lynn is the Veronica Lake lookalike.
Three black youths are charged with the Nite Owl massacre, and are subsequently killed escaping from the police. This neat wrap-up triggers alarm bells for Exley, who tracked the youths down in the first place, and he begins to investigate again, partnered by Vincennes who also has his suspicions. Meanwhile, Bud is also working on the case from a different side; he is convinced Exley made a mistake and is determined to prove him wrong. Eventually they will meet in the centre of this tangled web.
As with all good noir, the plot abounds with twists, turns, switchbacks, double-crosses, and red herrings. It is a confused moral maze of greys where Exley, who sees in black and white, must try and adjust to the seamy world he despises, and Bud must learn that he cannot solve every problem with his fists. Everyone is double-crossing everyone else and no-one is what they seem. It is a credit to the (Oscar-winning) writers that although simplifying the plot of the novel very considerably they have still managed to keep it labyrinthine, as the best film noir should be, and it is refreshing to have a film that makes us think instead of explaining everything to us.
The production is superb. It is as close as could be to the original black-and-white Bogart style: even the editing is laggy. Its glossy look has led many reviewers to compare it to another great movie with similar themes, Chinatown. All the period detail is right and yet the film doesn't feel like a period piece. Rather it is simply the world in which our characters live, one of contrasts between glamour and horror, light and dark, which are mirrored in each character. The direction and lighting are excellent, with a real feel for the style of the time, the half-light and shadows of film noir. And the soundtrack is *terrific*, a gently ironic punctuation to the film which fits each scene perfectly.
However, the real strong point of the film is its acting. Kim Basinger received a well-deserved Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role. It is nice to see her show at this stage in her career that she can be as good as she is here, as the world-weary, vulnerable Lynn. David Strathairn is properly creepy as the shadowy socialite Patchett. The three actors in the central roles excel. Kevin Spacey is always wonderful and he is perfectly cast as Vincennes, his smooth voice and laid-back delivery ideal for this unethical, limelight-loving but ultimately moral cop. Pearce is Australian, Crowe from New Zealand, but their American accents are almost flawless. Like Spacey, the casting is ideal. Pearce has the sharp features, the chiselled face to accompany the rigid, razor-sharp mind of his character; Crowe is more solidly built, stoic looking but with the expressive eyes that allow us to see Bud is more sensitive than we might imagine. Their performances as these two very different men make the characters entirely real to us, and we feel ourselves floundering in the moral swamp they are both sinking in.
It's hard to overemphasize what a good film LA Confidential is. I saw it three times in the cinema and am eagerly waiting to see it again on video. It looks great, it sounds great, and the acting is top-class. Best of all though, we are given interesting characters rather than 2D cardboard cut-outs, and a complex, twisting plot that requires us to actually bring our brains into the cinema instead of checking them in the lobby as usual. LA Confidential is both refreshing and saddening, since it shows up how low movies have fallen since the days of the movies it draws its inspiration from. Go see it, and see what we've been missing.
(c) Jennifer Mellerick 1999