L.A. Confidential (I've Finally Seen It!)

There’s something captivating about celebrity crime and misbehavior. As far as Hollywood has been Hollywood the lifestyles of those more famous than ourselves have captivated us, particularly when it is revealed they are guilty of less-than-glowing behavior. If I told you a local woman was going to rehab you’d alert me that bears also defecate in the woods, but when I say it’s the girl from The Parent Trap, you are suddenly more attentive. L.A. Confidential paints us a picture of Hollywood at its most glamorous, but at the same time this is when the public’s thirst for tabloid fodder was beginning to take shape.

This is but just a small part of what makes the beautiful, sprawling L.A. Confidential so great. It’s intriguing and fascinating in just about everything it does, from its police procedural storyline to its cinematography to its array of superior performances. It’s environment may be bright and glamorous, but its soul is dark and corrupt, much like the world it so wonderfully studies.

It is also a character study of three different police officers. Kevin Spacey, at the height of his 90’s power, plays Jack Vincennes, a detective sergeant in the LAPD who lives like a celebrity. He works as a technical advisor on the television show Badge of Honor, his main goal always to make headlines and get in the paper. Better yet, get in the pages of Hush Hush Magazine, a tabloid run by Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) that deals in celebrity and Hollywood deviance. Often Hudgens will get a story for Jack, who will show up on the scene just to make the arrest and get his picture taken. He’s an LAPD rock star.

Where Spacey’s career was on fire in 1997, the other two stars were still on the rise. Russell Crowe (described in Gene Siskel’s review as “a bright new face”, which kind of sounds surreal now) plays the more rugged, weary cop Bud White. He is prone to bursts of violence which can get him in trouble with the force. He lives by the stereotypical “tough cop” code, and isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty is it means justice is served. Meanwhile, Guy Pearce (also new to the scene) plays Edmund Exley, who plays it so by-the-book he’s in danger of turning into the book. He isn’t afraid of snitching on his fellow officers, simply because “rules are rules”, and the rest of the department resents him for it. Since he is such a straight-arrow he rises fast, but that doesn’t change the ridicule he faces on a daily basis.

The center of the film is a massacre which occurs at the local Nite Owl Coffee Shop, where every worker and patron is murdered in cold blood. Each of the three officers investigate the incident in their own unique way, creating three different narratives that will ultimately converge at the end (but don’t they all?). Throughout the investigation they learn that perhaps the way they have done things up until the end is perhaps not the soundest path, and that the ultimate goal is figuring out the truth: all politics, fame and headlines aside.

L.A. Confidential utilizes the film noir style found in so many detective films from the era in which it is set, but takes it to more modern, human, and ultimately dark places. It brings into question what exactly the greater good is, and what we may have to lose or gain to maintain it. All this set in the era in which the fervor over the personal lives of celebrities and socialites is being born. This obsession has only grown and become more embedded as time has gone on. The E! Network would have loved the events of L.A. Confidential.

Rating:  (out of 4)