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REVIEW: Complex plot, compelling characters, a ’50s LA setting and masterful direction add up to a disturbing mod-By HENRY SHEEHANThe Orange County RegisterOver the past 25 years,it’s become the practice of American crime movies to cloak themselves in elaborate visual and thematic dress that either subordinates violence or distances us from it.Whatever the intention and in the likes of “The Godfather” movies, “Chinatown” and “Pulp Fiction,” intentions and results were superb — the outcome was to ration out the direct effects ofviolence. Sure, it was disturbing to see Sonny Corleone gunneddown at the toll booth, Jake Gittes get his nose slashed open, or an anonymous crook get his head blown off by accident in the back seat of a car, but as shocking as these scenes might have been, they were almost like exclamation points: startling, but passed over.Now along comes “L A. Conti dential” to rip off the fancy dress. It’s not that this adaptation of James Ellroy’s best sell ing novel about corruption in the 1950s-era Los Angeles Police Department is crudely made.On the contrary, director Curtis Hanson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Brian Helge-land, has brought enormous sophistication to the movie, whose panoply of mirrors, windows and half-open doorways are wonderfully rendered symbols of aworld made up of watchers and the watched.But rather than build filters be tween the violence and the audience, Hanson has instead worked on clarifying the relationship between a violent act and the moral state of the man — it’s nearly always a man — who commits it, suffers it, or witnesses it. So we not only feel the ungloved force of each blow (and there are a lot of them), but immediately see the double impact, visceral and moral, on victim and victimizes And because of that double vi sion, the lines between those last two categories become ever harder to fix.A lot of this style can be traced back to filmmakers who were working in the period in which the film is set. Movie buffs will have no trouble recalling the likes of Don Siegel or Sam Fuller in watching the movie. But make no mistake, “L A. Confidential”is also something very new and very bold and very, very good. And also very disturbing The movie's plot is enormously complicated, with an overarch'LA. Confidential'► Stars: Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, JamesCromwell► Behind the scenes: Directed by Curtis Hanson; screenplay by Hanson and Brian Helgeland, based on the novel by James Ellroy; pro duced by Arnon Milchan, Hanson, Michael Nathanson► Playing: Opens today throughout Orange County► Rating: R for violence, language,sexuality► Grade: A *► Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes► You might like it if: You liked Chinatown.ing development and a series of subplots that occasionally blot each other out temporarily. But essentially it is the story of three detectives who end up trying to solve the same murder. Bud White (Russell Crowe), a violence-prone, not particularly bright man with a strong psychological compulsion to beat up anyone he sees abusing a woman; Fd Exley (Guy Pearce), awell-educated, by-the-book copwith an appetite for promotion soall-encompassing he will stoop toalmost any level for advancement; and Jack Vincennes (Ke vin Spacey), the LAPD’s officialadviser to a “Dragnet”-style copshow, who has gone completelyHollywood in his own lifestyle.The background is a glitzy L A where the underworld has sud denly gone up for grabs with the arrest of mob boss Mickey Cohen (Paul Guilfoyle). But the main action begins with a police riot, in which Bud’s propensity for vi olence lands him in hot water forbeating up Mexican Americanprisoners Ed, who as the presid irig officer had tried to stop theTROUBLE INL.A.: Danny DeVito, above left, plays atabloidpublisher,with Jack Vincennesas a policemovie adviser gone Hollywood Left,Guy Pearce is Detective Ed Exley, a by-the-book cop hungry forpromotionbeatings, takes the opportunity to offer the top brass a way out of the ensuing public relations nightmare.As a result, each ends up under the wing of a politically minded police captain, Dudley Smith (James Cromwell). An Irish American charmer, Smith only offers counsel to Exley. Bud, however, he puts in his own personal off the-books police squad, one that intercepts out-of-town mobsters as they alight in L A., savagely beats them, then sends them packing.But the murder that gets everyone sucked into a vortex ofconspiracy and corruption is that of Bud’s old partner, paunchyveteran Dick Stensland (Graham Beckel), who is found among the victims of a multiple murder and apparent robbery of a late-night diner Some local black youths are lingered and ar rested for the job, but the chaos that ensues from their subsequent escape convinces Bud and Ed separately that somethingdarker is afoot.Eventually, the two along with Vincennes will be drawn into the orbit of Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn), a shady, po litically connected millionairewho operates a bordello where the prostitutes have been made up or surgically altered to look like movie stars His star employee is Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), a Veronica Lake look-alike who hasn’t needed surgery to accomplish her masquerade, and who eventually ends up falling for Bud.Trying to recapitulate this narrative material is a bit like trying to corral feathers; one always seems to be floating away. For example, a lot of the action is influenced by Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito), editor, publisher and sole reporter of a scandal magazine called Hush Hush Aside from being full of delightful patter that DeVito delivers with relish, Sid is the connection between Vincennes and a world where show business and politics collide in a haze of blackmail. Indeed, it’s the bloody complication of one such scheme that sets the disreputable detective on a determined quest for thetruthRemarkably, the movie keeps all this material humming alongWhile the central plot line recedes into the background so much at times that it becomes nearly invisible, Hanson’s directorial hand is so sure, and what’s happening on-screen is so engrossing, you can be assured that everything will eventually become clear.That happens when the focus continues to narrow down to Bud and Exley, who end up the movie’s two champions. An unlikely team by temperament, their pairing underscores the movie’s two main strands, one philosophical, the other moral The first is, how do you discover and support the truth when it’s nearly impossible, because of the way people disguise themselves, to recog nize the truth w'hen you actuallysee it?The second revolves aroundthe question of violence, which, as the movie goes on, comes to be seen as chaos. Bud, ultimately the more likable of the two characters, feels engulfed by the chaos, trapped both by his compulsions and his body’s brawn, which makes him such a handy tool for the likes of Smith. He’d love to escape it, but for much of the movie he literally can’t imagine a world where a peaceful order could supplant the chaotic tides that bear him along. Ed, who turns out to be more of a conundrum the more you seehim, thinks he can manage chaos, that he already stands outside of it and can channel it to his own benefit. Each has a lesson tolearn about the particular mis conception he labors under, but only one learns the lesson completely.“L A. Confidential lsextraor dinary, no less for being unexpected Adapted from a novel said to be unadaptable and set ina genre that has seemed mcreas ingiy played out, it brings clarityand life to its art and to life. That’s a pretty good definition of a masterpiece, isn’t it?
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Fri, Sep 19, 1997
Page 322
Full Page
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USA 18 Oct 2021
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