There’s an image created by the thought of Old Hollywood; the lavish stars, the glorious studios, and the glamorous beaches all combining to form one seemingly happy place. The opening seconds of L.A. Confidential are dedicated to highlighting that community. The tone then shifts, exposing Los Angeles as an advertisement for a “Garden of Eden” no greater than any other big name city. Director Curtis Hanson’s crime drama placed first in a Los Angeles Times list of films (from the last 25 years) about LA life. And for good reason. L.A. Confidential flawlessly captures the majesty of the 1950’s, with all of it’s corruption and crime intact, and creates a newer, more accurate, image of Old Hollywood.
The film is set in a time and place where the movie business was intertwined with the law business. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is the epitome of an LA cop. He is the technical advisor on the crime TV show, “Badge of Honor,” and he also has “Hush-Hush” magazine publisher Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) lurking behind him. Together, they stage and set up celebrities for headline arrests, giving Vincennes the spotlight and Hudgens the sales.
Spacey's character is one of the film’s three protagonists. There is Officer Bud White (Russell Crowe), whose gung-ho interpretation of the law and almost superhuman strength make him “the muscle” of the force. And then there’s Detective Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) on the other end of the spectrum. Though dubbed “Shotgun Ed” midway through the film, Exley sticks to the books, reporting and filing his way towards the top of the law-enforcement hierarchy.
The film’s beginning is reserved as an introduction to each character, and at that time, I couldn’t see a way that such diverse characters could come together to form a smooth, singular plot. Hanson and his co-writer, Brian Helgeland, using James Ellroy’s novel as a basis, create an Academy Award winning screenplay that successfully shut that assumption down. When Exley takes a homicide call, he finds Bud White’s former partner and several others dead in the bathroom of the Nite Owl Coffee Shop. Exley (with Vincennes’ help) and White investigate the murders separately, but eventually cross paths, becoming one of the most intense “good cop, bad cop” combos in cinema history.
There is never a dull moment in the plot, the film at times acting almost as its own television show. It’s quite episodic, with other story lines cutting into the main investigation. Along with Night Owl, there are other crimes for the solving, and then there are the girls for the loving. As with many additions to the film noire genre, including Chinatown and Casablanca, there is a love interest, and in L.A. Confidential, the women take the form of hookers “cut” to look like celebrities. One of them, the main female character, Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), who didn’t need surgery to look like Veronica Lake, creates a love triangle between White and Exley, making their partnership, and the film, even more indulging and interesting.
L.A. Confidential is a brilliant contribution to film. Curtis Hanson recreates the glamour and mystique of Hollywood, and makes L.A. Confidential a sure classic.
