Wednesday, March 15, 2017

L.A. Confidential

Three detectives, a no nonsense enforcer (Russell Crowe),  a hated, career driven straight arrow (Guy Pearce), and a devil may care playboy (Kevin Spacey), in the early 1950s, ethically laxed Los Angeles Police Department are thrown into a seemingly disconnected maze involving crooked cops, heroin, rape, mass murder, blackmail, deep seated department corruption and a beautiful high end hooker (Kim Basinger) who falls for but may be playing the Crowe character. L.A. Confidential is one the few rewatchable great films that leaves chills up you're spine whether its for a piece of quotable dialogue, the performance, or the sheer craft. Brian Helgeland drafted one of the premier, labyrinthine screenplays (that miraculously somehow manages to make sense unlike Chinatown, the gold standard for L.A. detective movies) from James Ellroy's novel and director Curtis Hanson stages the picture beautifully with a distinct 50s noir atmosphere and a supreme cast (the three leads doing their best work in my own humble opinion) from top to bottom.
**** out of ****