L.A. Confidential. - movie reviews

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 10, 1997 by Joseph Cunneen

"L.A. Confidential" (Warner) is the fall's first hit, and it's not hard to understand why. Set in the 1950s, the movie looks at the Los Angeles Police Department as irreformably corrupt, and spins out its glamorously cynical and absorbing story with constant surprises and a handful of superb performances. Early reviews compare it to "Chinatown"; it may be a thriller without redeeming social value, but you won't want to leave.

Directed by Curt Hanson and cleverly adapted by him and Brian Helgeland from a James Ellroy novel, "L.A. Confidential" sets its confident tone from the start, with Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito), star reporter for Hush-Hush magazine, delighting in the guilty, Hollywood-tinged secrets he exploits for profit. Sid collaborates with narcotics cop Jack Vincennes (a super-smooth Kevin Spacey), who parades arrested celebrities in front of prearranged flashbulbs. This produces scoops for the scandal sheet and enhances Jack's prestige as adviser to the TV police drama "Badge of Honor."

Early stages of the movie highlight the contrast between bad cop Bud White (Russell Crow), who mistakes brutality for crime control, and good cop Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), hated by fellow officers for telling the truth about a Christmas-time assault on Mexican prisoners at police headquarters. The department successfully covers up its racist violence by publicly praising Exley and promoting him to detective while offering up an officer near retirement as scapegoat. The tart-tongued but reassuring lieutenant in charge, Dudley Smith (James Cromwell), after warning Exley of the corrupting pressures he will face in his new assignment, advises him not to wear glasses at work and warns, "You have the eye for human weakness but not the stomach."

Though considerably simplified from the novel that is its source, "L.A. Confidential" resists neat plot summary. Its central crime is a massacre at the Nite Owl Cafe. Three black suspects are brought in; Exley interrogates them with cunning, while White gets a lead from one of them by putting a gun in his mouth. Both sense there is more to learn about the case. White drives out to genteel Brentwood to question Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn), whose good taste is financed by supplying call girls made up to resemble movie stars. The trail leads White to question Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), a Veronica Lake look-alike. White immediately falls for her and we learn that he's the kind of guy who is especially upset by violence against women.

As the intrigue unwinds, even the ultracool Vincennes, who had earlier confessed "I can't remember" when White asked him why he became a cop, suspects a cover-up. The black suspects have been killed while trying to escape, but "L.A. Confidential" never stops to humanize victims or to develop the racial aspect of its material. It concentrates instead on thriller professionalism, stylishly filling out the period details of an earlier Los Angeles and keeping us off balance.

Although most of the earlier violence takes place off screen, "L.A. Confidential" is obviously not for the squeamish. Any illusion of realism is destroyed by its laughably excessive final shootout in which the L.A.P.D. seems to have wiped itself out. Until then, we're breathless and noticing how the characters are forcing us to moderate our first impressions. Although the ending is something of a cliche, unregenerate movie romantics will enjoy Kim Basinger's exit line.