The Greatest Films #7: L.A. Confidential
Background:
L.A. Confidential‘s loss to Titanic is, in my opinion, one of the biggest upsets of all time. Titanic was, indeed, large and epic, but L.A. Confidential was one of the best movies of that decade.
The only reason L.A. is not more widely discussed as a great film that got fucked at the Oscars is because a more legendary occurrence happened the next year in 1998 with the whole Shakespeare in Love/Saving Private Ryan debacle. I’ve actually never seen Shakespeare in Love, and I actually really don’t like Saving Private Ryan all that much, but I’m pretty sure I know which film is better…
What it is about:
The movie is complicated so I’ll only try to go over the plot in a rudimentary way.
The plot takes place in L.A. during the 1950s. It juxtaposes one side of Hollywood which is a glorified, glitzy Hollywood with the other side, which contains hookers, crooked-cops, drugs, and tabloid journalists.
People who are more familiar with the pulply, noir, Hollywood period will probably get this movie more on a satirical level, but I don’t watch those movies.
A cop Edmund Exley, played by Guy Pearce, is convince he’s going to be better than his father who was a legendary police officer. Alternately, enter Bud played by Russel Crowe, who is a bad ass crooked cop, but has something else to him. Then on top of that, there is Jack Vincennes, who is a smooth talking cop who is a consultant on a cop T.V. show and sells leads to tabloids.
The movie begins in a seemingly aimless fashion – a risky decision for Hanson. Most movies have to have the inciting incident happen by the fifteen minute mark. L.A. waits ’til around the thirty minute mark – not unlike China Town. Then the Night Owl killings happen. Everything in the movie revolves around what happened that night, who was involved, and how the characters respond.
Why it is a great film:
Curtis Hanson made a masterpiece. A perfect movie. It could be the best movie of the nineties next to Natural Born Killers and Goodfellas. It is a film-noir but updated into a modern thriller. The movie is a labyrinthian whodunit and its pleasures come not from the action or plot revelations, but instead from the character arcs and the relationships that form in response to conflicts and situations.
Bud and Exley are sworn enemies and when they befriend each other at the end of the film it doesn’t feel contrived. It feels like a real bond has formed between them. Also, the film focuses around the concept of justice and what it means to each one of them. Each member of the trio wants justice done to people who are bad, but all seem to have strayed from that goal due to crime, celebrity, or pride.
The film is also famous for introducing the world to two great actors: Guy Pearce and Russel Crowe. Both were teetering on the edge of fame at the time.
Pearce and Crowe were fundamental to this movie working. First off, Pearce needed that golden boy/perfect cheekbones look, which he had. But, he needed something else too. Exley needed an edge. There are moments were Exley teeters on the brink of madness and it works.
Crowe needed the exact opposite. He needed to be grizzly and fierce, but with a twinkle of good in his eyes – an element Crowe has taken into many of his roles.
The film ends in one of my favorite action scenes of all time. It is a bunker down and fight the bad guy scene. The guns fire loud and realistically. The action happens in front of the camera and the audience knows exactly who is where and why. These days god only knows what that scene would look like edited together. Fast editing is not always better.
L.A. Confidential is a great flick and deserves to be hailed as one of the classics of the nineties. Hopefully Hanson will try to make something equally as good sometime before he retires.
A+/5
-Collin
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