L.A. Confidential (film)

L.A. Confidential
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Curtis Hanson
Produced by	Curtis Hanson Arnon Milchan Michael G. Nathanson
Screenplay by	Curtis Hanson Brian Helgeland
Based on	L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy
Narrated by	Danny DeVito
Starring	Kevin Spacey Russell Crowe Guy Pearce Kim Basinger Danny DeVito James Cromwell David Strathairn
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	Dante Spinotti
Editing by	Peter Honess
Studio	Regency Enterprises
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	September 19, 1997 (1997-09-19)
Running time	138 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$35 million
Box office	$126,216,940

L.A. Confidential is a 1997 neo-noir film based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same title, the third book in his L.A. Quartet. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD officers in the year 1953, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity. The film adaptation was produced and directed by Curtis Hanson and co-written by Hanson and Brian Helgeland.

At the time, actors Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe were relatively unknown in North America, and one of the film's backers, Peter Dennett, was worried about the lack of established stars in the lead roles. However, he supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, and Danny DeVito.

Critically acclaimed, the film holds a 99% rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 85 out of 86 reviews positive and average rating of 8.6 out of 10, as well as an aggregated rating of 90% based on 28 reviews on Metacritic. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two, Basinger for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Hanson and Helgeland for Best Screenplay - Adapted.

Plot

An opening montage, narrated by Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito), publisher of Hush-Hush, a Hollywood sleaze magazine, explains that Mickey Cohen has taken over the organized crime rackets in Los Angeles (left behind by Bugsy Siegel) and that his actions have tarnished the reputation of the L.A. police department.

The story concerns the careers of three Los Angeles police officers: Detective Wendell "Bud" White (Russell Crowe), Detective Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), and Sergeant Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce). During Christmas 1954, Bud White, while out on a liquor run with his partner, Dick Stensland (Graham Beckel), checks in on a man he'd sent to San Quentin Penitentiary and finds him physically abusing his wife. White yanks the lighted Santa sleigh and reindeer decorations from the roof of the man's house. When the man comes outside and attempts to fight with White, he is beaten severely and handcuffed to the porch railing. White tells the man he'll be sent back to prison for about 18 months and that White will be watching him after he's released.

White and Stensland go to a liquor store to buy alcohol for a party at their precinct. White meets a beautiful woman, Lynn (Kim Basinger), who easily recognizes that he is a cop. White notices a young woman, whose face is bruised and bandaged, sitting in the backseat of a car with another unidentified man. White is confronted by the car's driver, Buzz Meeks (Darrell Sandeen), but disarms him and inquires further about the injured woman, who tells him herself that she's OK. White returns Meeks' pistol and wallet. Stensland confirms that Meeks is a former cop.

Vincennes, a narcotics detective who acts as technical adviser for the television cop show Badge of Honor, is met by Sid Hudgens. Sid has a hot tip for Vincennes: two starlets, Matt Reynolds (Simon Baker) and Tammy Jordan (Shawnee Free Jones), have purchased a small quantity of marijuana and have rented a hotel bungalow. Sid promises a $50 payment (Vincennes demands $100 and gets it) for doing the bust, provided that Sid can cover the incident and feature it in Hush-Hush. Vincennes breaks in on Matt and Tammy and arrests them in a gaudy show.

At a police precinct, Exley has been assigned as watch commander for the evening. A couple of reporters cite his father's own famous reputation as a police officer, suggesting that Exley has a lot to live up to. Exley's captain, Dudley Smith (James Cromwell), tells the young officer that unless he's willing to adopt the brutal tactics (planting evidence, interrogative beatings) employed by officers like his father, he'll never be a successful detective. Exley tells him he intends to build his career as an honest cop. Smith also asks Exley if he's willing to be "hated within the department." Exley says he is.

At Smith's precinct, Vincennes brings in Matt and Tammy and has them booked for possession of marijuana. The extra $50 Vincennes asked for over and above his usual $50 was a $20 payoff each for the two officers who assisted him and a final $10 for the watch commander. Exley turns Vincennes down, telling him to keep the money himself, a reply that perplexes Vincennes. At that moment, three Mexican suspects are brought in; it is believed they assaulted two police officers. The details of the incident quickly become hyperbolic, starting as reports of mild injuries, to both officers being near death in the hospital. Stensland and the other other party goers, already heavily intoxicated, rush to the holding area. They refuse to recognize Exley's authority, and the scene turns ugly as the Mexican prisoners are viciously beaten. Exley is locked in the isolation room and is helpless. White tries to pull Stensland off one of the prisoners only to join in the beating when one of them insults him. Vincennes joins in as well when a prisoner falls on him, bloodying his fancy suit. The reporters who'd been interviewing Exley are also present, snapping a photo of the fight. The story, dubbed "Bloody Christmas," quickly makes the Los Angeles Times and is devastating to the already tarnished image of the LAPD.

The police commissioner, along with District Attorney Ellis Loew (Ron Rifkin) and Dudley Smith, question White, Vincennes, and Exley. White staunchly refuses to inform on Stensland and is immediately suspended. Exley, knowing that his testimony will secure him a promotion to lieutenant and detective level, agrees to appear in court as a surprise witness. Knowing that they'll need the testimony of a third witness, Exley suggests Vincennes, advising them to threaten Vincennes with revoking his Badge of Honor advisory role. Vincennes agrees and accepts a transfer to the vice department following a brief suspension. Exley is given his promotion. Stensland is fired from the force, Exley moves up to homicide investigation and is immediately despised, and Vincennes joins the Vice Squad.

White is taken off suspension when he agrees to aid Smith in a new project: they will intercept mobsters who intend to move into L.A. and take over Mickey Cohen's businesses. The suspects are taken to a remote and abandoned motel complex called The Victory and are beaten by White and forced to leave the city. Hudgens reports in Hush-Hush that a string of murders of former Cohen lieutenants may be a power struggle to gain control of the void left by Cohen's imprisonment. In one incident, Cohen's top heroin dealer is murdered and 20 kilograms of product is stolen by unidentified killers.

On his first night in Homicide, Exley gets a call about a murder at the Nite Owl coffee shop, a regular hangout for cops. Exley arrives on the scene and finds the cook dead behind the counter and the rest of the victims slaughtered in the men's room. Capt. Smith arrives and tells Exley that he cannot have control of the investigation but he will be second in command. The forensics team quickly reports that there were seven victims, all killed with shotguns, and that one of them was Dick Stensland. At the hospital, Bud White finds Stensland's corpse and demands the story from Exley, who fills him in. Another of the victims, Susan Lefferts (Amber Smith), is seen by White when her mother (Gwenda Deacon) identifies her. White recognizes Susan as the woman in the car who appeared to be injured the night he and Stensland bought the liquor.

Every police officer in the city is assigned to the search and apprehension of the Nite Owl killers. Exley himself will lead the interrogations of the suspects when they are caught. Leads are few but a report of three "negro" males firing shotguns and driving a specific model car will be followed by all the two-man teams involved. Bud White strikes out on his own, refusing to be partnered. He returns to the liquor store where he met Lynn, and is given the address of a man named Pierce Patchett. White talks to Patchett and finds out that the woman he met in the liquor store, Lynn (whose last name is Bracken), and the other woman in the car that night, Lefferts, are part of a prostitution ring run by Patchett (the man in the back seat with Lefferts) himself that uses plastic surgery to give his women the appearance of famous movie stars. The prostitution ring is dubbed "Fleur de Lis" and is part of a file Vincennes had seen when he joined Vice. Lynn is Patchett's Veronica Lake look-alike while Lefferts was Rita Hayworth. However, Patchett refuses to divulge any details about Lefferts' murder and cuts the meeting short.

Exley joins Vincennes on a hunch and they turn up the address of a black man who drives the car mentioned in the lead. They track the man and his two friends to their home and find the car and shotguns. They also find two officers, Breuning and Carlisle, ahead of them. Vincennes argues briefly with the two other officers about who will arrest the three men; Breuning and Carlisle had gotten there first and Vincennes knows the arrest will get him back in with the narcotics squad. Exley pulls rank and orders them to all proceed together, and the three black men are arrested.

During the questioning of the suspects, Exley, using the interrogation room's P.A. speakers and microphones, demonstrates brilliant tactical skill, tricking the three men into believing they have each been informed on by the others. The three already have criminal records and have spent time in juvenile facilities, which Exley also uses to his advantage. One of them, crying and nearly hysterical, tells Exley that they'd visited the house of another man, Sylvester Fitch, so he could lose his virginity to a woman held captive there. Enraged, Bud White rushes into the room of the next man and, emptying every chamber in the cylinder but one and putting the barrel of his pistol in the man's mouth, demands to know Fitch's address, which the man gives up. A team is sent out to Fitch's house and White sneaks in first, finding a young Mexican woman bound naked to a bed. White finds Fitch and shoots him dead, planting a fired pistol on him. When the bound woman is driven away in an ambulance, Exley tries to ask her when the three black men left her, but White stops him, waving the ambulance away. White tells Exley that he's only concerned about furthering his career, to which Exley replies that Stensland "got what he deserved" and White's fate will be the same. White lunges at Exley but is held back. At that moment a report is issued that the three black men have escaped from the precinct.

Exley, talking to a stenographer, gets an address that was given by one of the black men where they had bought drugs. Exley takes Carlisle with him to the address and they burst in to find the three blacks there with their narcotics supplier. When one of them knocks a bottle off the table, Carlisle opens fire, killing him. The dealer opens fire, killing Carlisle. Exley kills another of the black men and rushes after the third, trapping him in an elevator and killing him. Exley is greeted as a hero back at the station and Smith dubs him "Shotgun Ed." The murder case is seemingly solved, Exley is given the department's highest decoration, the Medal of Valor, and earns the respect of the other detectives in the department who previously despised him. Vincennes returns to the narcotics squad and the Badge of Honor show. In the meantime, Patchett is able to break ground on an ambitious project, a freeway running from the eastern sections of L.A. to the ocean, one he is heavily invested in. He has also blackmailed a local politician with photos showing him cavorting with Lynn Bracken.

Back on the set of Badge of Honor, Vincennes meets with Sid Hudgens, who offers him another job: Hudgens is deliberately setting up L.A. District Attorney Loew in a blackmail scheme by arranging a sexual encounter with an out-of-work actor, Matt Reynolds, whom Vincennes had arrested on marijuana charges earlier in the film. Vincennes' job will be to bust in on them and arrest them both. Vincennes feels extreme guilt about the job and goes to the hotel early to let the young actor off the hook. He finds the man murdered.

White begins a romantic relationship with Lynn and continues his work with Smith, beating mobsters at the Victory. The work has turned White into a burnout and his affair with Lynn has softened his otherwise vicious demeanor. White is still suspicious of many of the details surrounding the Night Owl murders and talks to the coroner. The files from the case are still in the doctor's lab. Studying a picture of the scene, White remembers that Stensland had a girlfriend who must have been with him at the cafe. He visits the home of Lefferts' distraught mother who confirms that Stensland was her daughter's boyfriend. She also tells White that Stensland had been seen with another man carrying a large bundle into her back yard. When White notices that Mrs. Lefferts has a towel placed at the bottom of a door leading to her back sunroom to block a strong unpleasant stench, he checks out the crawlspace under the house and finds a rotted corpse: it is Buzz Meeks. White deliberately leaves the body behind.

Back at the station, Exley talks to the coroner whom White had spoken to earlier. Exley follows White's lead to Mrs. Lefferts' home and finds Meeks' corpse. He takes it to the morgue, demanding an identity on the body, and goes to Jack Vincennes and asks for his help in investigating further details about the Nite Owl case. Exley shares the story of how his father was killed by a street criminal who was never identified but whom Exley named "Rollo Tomasi" to make him seem more real. Vincennes agrees to help Exley if Exley will help him solve Reynolds' murder. Vincennes tails White to the Formosa Bar where White catches up with mob enforcer, Johnny Stompanato, Mickey Cohen's former bodyguard, and finds out (after roughly squeezing the man's crotch) that Meeks had come into a large supply of heroin. White concludes that Meeks was murdered for it.

Vincennes and Exley next see White at Lynn Bracken's house. Vincennes remembers "Fleur de Lis" and realizes that Lynn is one of Patchett's prostitutes. A call comes in telling them that Meeks' body has been ID'd. Vincennes goes to get the news while Exley pays a call to Bracken. Refusing to answer the lieutenant's questions, she seduces him while Sid Hudgens photographs them both from behind a one-way mirror. Vincennes, going through old records, finds a connection between Dick Stensland, Buzz Meeks and Dudley Smith. He goes to Smith's house for further information. Smith listens long enough to find out if Vincennes had told Exley anything; when Vincennes says he hadn't yet informed Exley of the connection between Smith, Meeks and Stenslend, Smith suddenly shoots Vincennes in the chest. As Vincennes dies, Smith asks if Vincennes has any farewell words and Vincennes only says "Rollo Tomasi." Smith announces the next day that the department will suspend all other cases until Vincennes' killer is found. He talks privately with Exley about the only lead, Vincennes' last words. Exley, realizing that Smith is Vincennes' killer, says he knows nothing of the name.

Smith meets with Bud White and criticizes him for what he deems a lack of enthusiasm concerning his job. He also tells White that they'll be going to the Victory Motel to interrogate the man he believes last saw Vincennes alive. It turns out to be Sid Hudgens. Smith asks him a few questions which don't provide much information. However, during the beating that White administers, Hudgens talks about how Pierce Patchett uses his women for blackmail. He mentions that he'd photographed a cop having sex with Lynn, and White becomes enraged, turning Hudgens' chair over and rushing out to the reporter's car. In the trunk, he finds pictures, not of himself with Lynn, but of Lynn with Exley. White becomes further enraged and drives off. Back in the room, Smith and Breuning kill Hudgens over his protests that he was part of a "team" with them. Exley checks with record-keeping for arrest warrant books on Buzz Meeks and finds nothing. When he checks the daily log books he finds that Smith had signed off on nearly all of Meeks' and Stensland's work for many years and realizes the connection between them is prominent. White visits Lynn's house, furiously and jealously demanding to know about her tryst with Exley. When she tries to calm him down, he hits her, bruising her face.

White finds Exley in the records room at the precinct and attacks him after showing him the photo of him and Lynn together. Exley manages to fight White off and claims that the photo was planted to make White try to kill Exley. The two stop their battle and begin to share details they've uncovered; Meeks, Stensland, Smith, Reynolds' murder, the missing heroin are all linked. In order to piece it all together, the two agree to work as partners, even at the expense of Exley's reputation for solving the Nite Owl murder case, which built his career. They go to Loew's office and demand wiretaps for Smith. Loew refuses and further refuses to divulge any information about Reynolds' murder and dismisses them, stepping into his office bathroom. White shoves the D.A.'s head into the toilet and then dangles him headfirst out the window, many floors above the sidewalk. Loew caves and tells him that Reynolds was killed because he was present when Loew and Smith argued over the assumption of the Cohen drug-dealing rackets. Loew was allowed to live because of his influence. White and Exley agree that their next stop is Patchett's house.

When they arrive there, they find Patchett dead, seemingly a suicide, but not a likely one. Believing that Lynn had some knowledge of Patchett's plan, they arrange to have her taken to a nearby police station for safety. Exley goes there and talks to her, saying White feels great remorse for beating her. White goes to Sid Hudgens' office and finds him dead. While there, he receives a call telling him to meet Exley at the Victory Motel. At the Victory, he and Exley, who had received a similar call, realize that the calls were placed to get them together in a vulnerable location. They hole up in the same cabin where Sid Hudgens was murdered. Smith's men approach the cabin and White and Exley open fire; a fierce gunfight ensues. They eventually kill all of Smith's men, but are confronted by Smith himself, who shoots White, forcing him to fall. Smith turns his gun on a cornered Exley, who says "Rollo Tomasi". Smith asks who the man is, Exley tells him it's Smith himself, merely because he's a man who can evade the law. Smith hears approaching police cars and tells Exley to walk out with him, promising to further the younger man's career. He also tells Exley to show his badge. As Smith walks ahead to meet the police cars, Exley shoots Smith in the back and then walks forward himself, holding his badge up as Smith instructed.

Sitting in one of the same interview rooms he used to interrogate the three black men, Exley explains the intricate connections in the case. The D.A. & LAPD Commissioner are incredulous but realize the department's reputation for upholding the law will be threatened. They float the idea of getting Exley to "play ball" and spot Exley beaming. When they ask him why he's smiling, he says they'll need a star witness.

In the final scene, Exley is once again presented with the LAPD Medal of Valor. He spots Lynn and walks out with her. In her car is Bud White, bandaged and recovering from his wounds. Lynn says they're going to her hometown of Bisbee, Arizona. Exley and White shake hands and Lynn and White drive off.

Cast

• Kevin Spacey as Det. Sgt. Jack Vincennes
• Russell Crowe as Officer Wendell "Bud" White
• Guy Pearce as Det. Lt. Edmund Jennings "Ed" Exley
• James Cromwell as Capt. Dudley Liam Smith
• Kim Basinger as Lynn Margaret Bracken
• Danny DeVito as Sid Hudgens
• David Strathairn as Pierce Morehouse Patchett
• Ron Rifkin as District Attorney Ellis Loew
• Graham Beckel as Det. Richard Alex "Dick" Stensland
• Amber Smith as Susan Lefferts
• John Mahon as LAPD Police Chief Worton
• Paul Guilfoyle as Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen
• Matt McCoy as Brett Chase
• Paolo Seganti as Johnny Stompanato
• Simon Baker as Matt Reynolds
• Shawnee Free Jones as Tammy Jordan
• Darrell Sandeen as Leland "Buzz" Meeks
• Marisol Padilla Sánchez as Inez Soto
• Gwenda Deacon as Mrs. Lefferts

Production

Development

Curtis Hanson had read half a dozen of James Ellroy's books before L.A. Confidential and was drawn to its characters, not the plot. He said, "What hooked me on them was that, as I met them, one after the other, I didn't like them - but as I continued reading, I started to care about them." Ellroy's novel also made Hanson think about L.A. and provided him with an opportunity to "set a movie at a point in time when the whole dream of Los Angeles, from that apparently golden era of the '20s and '30s, was being bulldozed." Screenwriter Brian Helgeland was originally signed to Warner Brothers to write a Viking film with director Uli Edel and then worked on an unproduced modern-day King Arthur story. Helgeland was a long-time fan of Ellroy's novels. When he heard that Warner Bros. had acquired the rights to Confidential in 1990, he lobbied to script the film. However, at the time, the studio was only talking to well-known screenwriters. When he finally did get a meeting, it was canceled two days before it was to occur.

Helgeland found that Hanson had been hired to direct and met with him while the filmmaker was making The River Wild. They found that they not only shared a love for Ellroy's fiction but also agreed on how to adapt Confidential into a film. According to Helgeland, they had "to remove every scene from the book that didn't have the three main cops in it, and then to work from those scenes out." According to Hanson, he "wanted the audience to be challenged but at the same time I didn't want them to get lost". They worked on the script together for two years, with Hanson turning down jobs and Helgeland writing seven drafts for free. The two men also got Ellroy's approval of their approach. He had seen Hanson's films, The Bedroom Window and Bad Influence and found him to be "a competent and interesting storyteller," but was not convinced that his book would be made into a film until he talked to the director. He later said, "They preserved the basic integrity of the book and its main theme...Brian and Curtis took a work of fiction that had eight plotlines, reduced those to three, and retained the dramatic force of three men working out their destiny."

Warner executive Bill Gerber showed the script to Michael Nathanson, CEO of New Regency Productions, which had a deal with the studio. Nathanson loved it, but they had to get the approval from the owner of New Regency, Arnon Milchan. Hanson prepared a presentation that consisted of 15 vintage postcards and pictures of L.A. mounted on posterboards, and made his pitch to Milchan. The pictures consisted of orange groves, beaches, tract homes in the San Fernando Valley, and the opening of the Hollywood Freeway to symbolize the image of prosperity sold to the public.

Then, Hanson showed the darker side of Ellroy's novel with the cover of scandal rag, Confidential and the famous shot of Robert Mitchum coming out of jail after his marijuana bust. He also had photographs of jazz musicians of the time: Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan, and Chet Baker to represent the popular music people of the time. Hanson emphasized that the period detail would be in the background and the characters in the foreground. Milchan was impressed with his presentation and agreed to finance it.

Casting

Hanson had seen Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper and found him "repulsive and scary, but captivating." The actor had read Ellroy's The Black Dahlia but not L.A. Confidential. When he read the script, Crowe was drawn to Bud White's "self-righteous moral crusade." Crowe fit the visual preconception of Bud. Hanson put the actor on tape doing a few scenes from the script and showed it to the film's producers, who agreed to cast him as Bud. Guy Pearce auditioned like countless other actors, and Hanson felt that he "was very much what I had in mind for Ed Exley." The director purposely did not watch the actor in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, afraid that it might influence his decision. As he did with Crowe, Hanson taped Pearce and showed it to the producers, who agreed he should be cast as Exley. Pearce did not like Exley when he first read the screenplay and remarked, "I was pretty quick to judge him and dislike him for being so self-righteous ... But I liked how honest he became about himself. I knew I could grow to respect and understand him."

Milchan was against casting "two Australians" in the American period piece (Pearce wryly commented in a later interview that while both he and Crowe grew up in Australia, he is English, while Crowe is a New Zealander). Besides their national origins, both Crowe and Pearce were relative unknowns in North America, and Milchan was equally worried about the lack of movie stars in the lead roles.

However, Milchan supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and Kevin Spacey. Hanson cast Crowe and Pearce because he wanted to "replicate my experience of the book. You don't like any of these characters at first, but the deeper you get into their story, the more you begin to sympathize with them. I didn't want actors audiences knew and already liked."

Hanson felt that the character of Jack Vincennes was "a movie star among cops," and thought of Spacey, with his "movie-star charisma," casting him specifically against type. The director was confident that the actor "could play the man behind that veneer, the man who also lost his soul," and when he gave him the script, he told him to think of Dean Martin while in the role. Hanson cast Basinger because he felt that she "was the character to me. What beauty today could project the glamor of Hollywood's golden age?"

Pre-production

To give his cast and crew points and counterpoints to capture L.A. in the 1950s, he held a "mini-film festival," showing one film a week: The Bad and the Beautiful, because it epitomized the glamorous Hollywood look; In a Lonely Place, because it revealed the ugly underbelly of Hollywood glamor; Don Siegel's The Lineup and Private Hell 36, "for their lean and efficient style;" and Kiss Me Deadly, because it was "so rooted in the futuristic 50s: the atomic age." Hanson and the film's cinematographer Dante Spinotti agreed that the film would be shot widescreen, and studied two Cinemascope films from the period: Douglas Sirk's The Tarnished Angels and Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running.

Before filming took place, Hanson brought Crowe and Pearce to L.A. for two months to immerse them in the city and the time period. He also got them dialect coaches, showed them vintage police training films, and introduced them to real-life cops. Pearce found the contemporary police force had changed too much to be useful research material and disliked the police officer he rode along with because he was racist. The actor found the police films more valuable "because there was a real sort of stiffness, a woodenness about these people" that he felt Exley had as well. Crowe studied Sterling Hayden in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing "for that beefy manliness that came out of World War II." For six weeks, Crowe, Pearce, Hanson and Helgeland conducted rehearsals, which consisted of their discussing each scene in the script. As other actors were cast they would join in.

Principal photography

Hanson did not want the film to be an exercise in nostalgia, and so had Spinotti shoot it like a contemporary film, and use more naturalistic lighting than in a classic film noir. He told Spinotti and the film's production designer Jeannine Oppewall to pay great attention to period detail, but to then "put it all in the background."

Music

Main article: L.A. Confidential (soundtrack)

Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, but lost to James Horner's score for Best Picture Titanic.

Reception

The film was screened at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. According to Hanson, Warner did not want it shown at Cannes, because they felt that there was an "anti-studio bias ... So why go and come home a loser?" However, Hanson wanted to debut the film at a high-profile, international venue like Cannes. He and other producers bypassed the studio and sent a print directly to the festival's selection committee, which loved it. Ellroy saw the film and said, "I understood in 40 minutes or so that it is a work of art on its own level. It was amazing to see the physical incarnation of the characters."

Box office

L.A. Confidential was released on September 19, 1997 in 769 theaters, grossing $5.2 million on its opening weekend. On October 3, it was given an expanded release in 1,625 theaters. It went on to make $64.6 million in North America and $61.6 million in the rest of the world, for a worldwide total of $126.2 million.

Critical response

L.A. Confidential scored very high with critics, presently sporting a rare 99% "Certified Fresh" approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 85 out of 86 reviews positive. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and described it as "seductive and beautiful, cynical and twisted, and one of the best films of the year." Later, he included it as one of his "Great Movies" and described it as "film noir, and so it is, but it is more: Unusually for a crime film, it deals with the psychology of the characters ... It contains all the elements of police action, but in a sharply clipped, more economical style; the action exists not for itself but to provide an arena for the personalities". In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Mr. Spacey is at his insinuating best, languid and debonair, in a much more offbeat performance than this film could have drawn from a more conventional star. And the two Australian actors, tightly wound Mr. Pearce and fiery, brawny Mr. Crowe, qualify as revelations." Desson Howe, in his review for the Washington Post, praised the cast: "Pearce makes a wonderful prude who gets progressively tougher and more jaded. New Zealand-born Crowe has a unique and sexy toughness; imagine Mickey Rourke without the attitude. Although she's playing a stock character, Basinger exudes a sort of chaste sultriness. Spacey is always enjoyable."

In his review for the Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote, "The big star is Los Angeles itself. Like Roman Polanski's depiction of Los Angeles in the 30s in Chinatown, the atmosphere and detailed production design are a rich gel where the strands of narrative form." USA Today gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying of the screenplay, "It appears as if screenwriters Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson have pulled off a miracle in keeping multiple stories straight. Have they ever. Ellroy's novel has four extra layers of plot and three times as many characters ... the writers have trimmed unwieldy muscle, not just fat, and gotten away with it." In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, "L.A. Confidential asks the audience to raise its level a bit, too—you actually have to pay attention to follow the double-crossing intricacies of the plot. The reward for your work is dark and dirty fun." Richard Schickel, in his review for Time, wrote, "It's a movie of shadows and half lights, the best approximation of the old black-and-white noir look anyone has yet managed on color stock. But it's no idle exercise in style. The film's look suggests how deep the tradition of police corruption runs."

In his review for the New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "Mr. Crowe strikes the deepest registers with the tortured character of Bud White, a part that has had less cut out of it from the book than either Mr. Spacey's or Mr. Pearce's ... but Mr. Crowe at moments reminded me of James Cagney's poignant performance in Charles Vidor's Love Me or Leave Me (1955), and I can think of no higher praise." Kenneth Turan, in his review for Los Angeles Times, wrote, "The only potential audience drawback L.A. Confidential has is its reliance on unsettling bursts of violence, both bloody shootings and intense physical beatings that give the picture a palpable air of menace. Overriding that, finally, is the film's complete command of its material." In his review for The Independent, Ryan Gilbey wrote, "In fact, it's a very well made and intelligent picture, assembled with an attention to detail, both in plot and characterisation, that you might have feared was all but extinct in mainstream American cinema." Richard Williams, in his review for The Guardian, wrote, "L.A. Confidential gets just about everything right. The light, the architecture, the slang, the music ... a wonderful Lana Turner joke. A sense, above all, of damaged people arriving to make new lives and getting seduced by the scent of night-blooming jasmine, the perfume of corruption."

Accolades

L.A. Confidential was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two, Kim Basinger for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland for Best Screenplay - Adapted. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Director, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score and Sound (Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Kirk Francis). Basinger tied for the Best Supporting Actress with Gloria Stuart from Titanic at the 4th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Time ranked L.A. Confidential the best film of 1997. The National Society of Film Critics also ranked it the best film of the year and Curtis Hanson was voted Best Director. The New York Film Critics Circle also voted L.A. Confidential as best film of 1997 in addition to ranking Hanson as best director, and he and Brian Helgeland with the best screenplay. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review also voted L.A. Confidential as the best film of 1997. As a result, it is only the third film to sweep the "Big Four" critics awards.

It was also voted as the best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list." In 2009, the London Film Critics' Circle voted L.A. Confidential one of the best movies of the last 30 years.

Home media

A DVD was released April 21, 1998. In addition to the film, it included two featurettes, an interactive map of Los Angeles, a music-only track, a theatrical trailer, and three TV spots.^{[citation needed]}

A two-disc Special Edition was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 23, 2008. Both sets contain the same bonus content. In addition to the features from the original DVD, included are four new featurettes, the pilot of the proposed TV series starring Kiefer Sutherland, and film commentary by critic/historian Andrew Sarris, James Ellroy, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Ruth Myers, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger, Brian Helgeland, Jeannine Oppewall, Dante Spinotti, and Danny DeVito. Some sets included a six-song sampler from the film's soundtrack.^{[citation needed]}

References

Further reading

• Dargis, Manohla (2003). L.A. Confidential (BFI Modern Classics). British Film Institute. ISBN 0-85170-944-3. 

External links

• L.A. Confidential at the Internet Movie Database
• L.A. Confidential at the TCM Movie Database
• L.A. Confidential at AllRovi
• L.A. Confidential at Rotten Tomatoes
• L.A. Confidential at Metacritic
• Press Conference at the Toronto Film Festival
• L.A. Confidential Shooting Locations