L.A. Confidential (1997)

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L.A. Confidential (1997)

7/10

Starring

Guy Pearce

Russell Crowe

Kevin Spacey

Kim Basinger

Danny DeVito

Directed by Curtis Hanson

L.A. Confidential is a 1997 classic that has a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and after seeing the movie yesterday, I now know why.

L.A. Confidential is very captivating, the twists and turns in the movie take you on aware, at the time of its release both Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe were unknowns, yet they were cast as the leads in the movie, while Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, and Danny DeVito, were cast in supporting roles.

The movie presents itself as a narration by Danny DeVito, who is writing for a newspaper and then it switches to different gear when DeVito’s character’s status in the movie was compromised.

The movie is based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same title, L.A. Confidential also happened to be the third book in his L.A. Quartet series.

L.A. Confidential is a little different from the usual police taking down a mafia script. It started with the mafia boss already busted by the police and every available gun loaded gang around with enough balls was trying to feel the space that was made available when the Mafia Boss was taken away.

The movie tells the story of a group of LAPD officers; one (Edmund "Ed" Exley (Guy Pearce)) is a son of a legendary detective Sergeant who was determined to live up to his father’s reputation and even surpass it. The other is Officer Wendell "Bud" White (Russell Crowe) who is obsessed with violently punishing women beaters. Their path crossed when there was an outburst in the station, which resulted in Ed being promoted to Det. Lt.

From there a rape case, a drug scandal and celebrity look alike prostitutes led to plot of a new man trying to take over the mafia boss position.

Before filming started the cast and crew held a "mini-film festival", showing one film a week, and the leads (Crowe and Pearce) spent some time in L.A. watching police films and also mixing with real life police officers; all in the aim of getting the cast acquainted with what life was as in 1950 and to know what being a police officer was like.

L.A. Confidential went on to be both a critical and commercial success. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, but if we can all remember that was the same year that Titanic (James Cameron) was released, so it had its work cut for it.

It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Sound Mixing, but lost all the categories to Titanic.

Regardless of that it went home with two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor (Kim Basinger) and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

It is a nice film and it is one film I know that you will enjoy seeing, but rent the DVD, it is not one movie I think you will like to see twice.