“L.A. Confidential”

“L.A. Confidential” hearkens back to a Los Angeles of the 1940s and 50s, when the film noir of John Huston and Howard Hawks was en vogue. Like the great detective movies, “L.A. Confidential” invests in its seedy, warped characters, straight from the novel by James Ellroy. The screenplay was adapted by Brian Helgeland.

Bud White (Russell Crowe) is the department’s muscle, a violent detective with a penchant for defending damsels in distress. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is the ambitious, newly promoted detective who’s willing to step on whomever he needs to in order to step out of his father’s shadow. Jack Vincenz (Kevin Spacey) is a lazy cop who’s been distracted from his true skills as a narcotics officer by his job as a consultant on a TV show.

Gangster Mickey Cohen controls vice in L.A., that is, until he goes down for tax evasion. Then his colleagues in crime start turning up dead, murdered by unidentified assassins. As the police department investigates these crimes, Exley, White, and Vincenz become unlikely partners, leading to a corruption far worse than any of Cohen’s operations.

“L.A. Confidential” is one of the best films of 1997, slightly overshadowed by a little film called “Titanic”. It won a much-deserved Best Screenplay Oscar. The screenwriters go to great lengths to develop each character. Thus, when one backstabs the other, we feel betrayed. When one is revealed as corrupt, we’re disappointed. This investment makes “L.A. Confidential” not only a terrific crime film but also a great film in general.