I'm not going to try to summarize the plot of L.A. Confidential as it's all sort of a puzzle and there are lots of pieces to work out. It's like watching a mystery novel unfold, you're not sure how the clues fit together but you know that they somehow do at the end. The film opens with a narrated story of a mob boss going down and then his inner circle getting executed in a series of high profile gang murders. There's a prostitution ring going on that involves high end call girls made to look like movie stars. This runs parallel to a high profile case involving huge shoot out at a restaurant called the Night Owl leaving half a dozen people dead. The central plot revolves around the Night Owl shooting but nothing seems as it appears and a deeper investigation is needed. The fun is watching all the pieces come together.
A minor subplot that turns out to be pretty important occurs in the beginning of the film in a police brutality case labelled as "Bloody Christmas" in the tabloids. Here we are introduced to the three main characters, three cops as different as night and day, but cops nonetheless. How they handle the fallout of Bloody Christmas reveals how they operate. There's Bud White (Russell Crowe), a tough guy with a penchant for taking down women-beaters. He's not afraid to get his hands dirty to get the job done even if that means roughing up some perps or bending the rules a little to ensure justice is served. He refuses to snitch against his fellow officers and has little patience or respect for those that do. His polar opposite is Ed Exley (Guy Pierce), an idealistic and ambitious by-the-books cop who will testify against a fellow cop if it is the right thing to do. Getting a promotion along the way doesn't hurt either. Somewhere in between the two is Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a celebrity cop whose bread and butter is being the advisor to a popular TV cop show. He's not a snitch, that is until they threaten his position on the TV show. Out of the three, Jack seems the least suited to be a cop as he is more concerned over his celebrity status than actual police work. But all three are good at what they do and it's inevitable that the separate cases they work will somehow be tied together in this thrilling noir film.
If there is one period in American history that makes the most interesting setting for movies it must be the 1940's-1950's. There's something fantastic about the way men wear their suits and drink their booze, how women are glamoured up as if to walk down the red carpet, the seedy atmosphere and overall sleaze of the time period. Of course I am talking more about the noir elements in film rather than the actual time period, but what a great time to imagine living in! L.A. Confidential paints a picture of 1950's Los Angeles as a place of money, drugs, sex, corruption, celebrity, and tabloids, everything you'd imagine from classic film noir. The dialogue is slick, the plot is sly and the feeling is slimy, in another words, all fantastic.
I loved how while working like a pulp fiction mystery it also had rich characters, helped by strong performances all around. Crowe seems to be the leading star and shows the most variety, but I liked Kevin Spacey's subtle performance a little better. At first, I didn't really respect his character as he seems like a glory hog, but by the end he comes out strong. There's a great moment of self realization in the middle for Jack as he realizes he's done something really scummy and you can see his desire to set things right on his face. Kim Bassinger plays a Veronica Lake lookalike call girl and has a couple great scenes, including a fantastic monologue. Danny DeVito plays a slimy little head of a tabloid magazine called Hush-Hush and relishes in his role.
I thought L.A. Confidential was great. It's a slow burner but I didn't mind at all as there were plenty of interesting elements to keep it running smoothly along.
Grade: A-
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