THE INDISPENSIBLES – #10: LA CONFIDENTIAL
Remember the first time you heard that rumour about Richard Gere doing thoroughly debauched things with a hamster and his anus? What about the time when it was exposed that clean-cut actor, and son of Mormon-hippies, River Phoenix dropped dead in that LA street as a result of a huge drug overdose? Or OJ allegedly murdering his wife? ‘Wacko Jacko’ and those kids? In his bed? Stories of masturbation and forced oral sex soon following! Los Angeles is one crazy place!
LA Confidential is based on the belief that there are millions of stories in the ‘City of Angels’ just like those, and all of them will raise your eyebrows and curl your hair.
The days of Hello! and Heat are not new, they’ve unfortunately always been around – they came to life in the 50s, they’ve just gotten a whole lot worse in our time!
It’s Christmas Eve, 1953, and we are introduced to three officers who, in their own respective ways, represent the choices that lie ahead for the LAPD in the years, nay decades, to come. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) lives for his job as technical adviser on ‘Badge of Honour’ a Dragnet-style television show. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is an aggressive young cop who is willing to accommodate the department’s relaxed ethics on demand, on the condition that anyone with a penchant for violence towards women is passed his way and left alone with him. And Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is a straight-arrow ambitious careerist, living within the shadow of his deceased but much acclaimed police officer father. Exley wants to do everything by the book. His captain, Dudley Smith (James Cromwell), kindly explains that an officer must be prepared to lie, cheat and steal – of course all in the name of making sure that the guilty go to jail.
When a Christmas Eve brawl within the precinct’s custody department between Mexican arrestees and drunken corrupt cops is captured by a local newspaper and published across LA, Exley turns the disgrace to his advantage and informs on all the officers involved in return for a promotion. Three particular officers to suffer at the hands of Exley’s formal statement are Jack Vincennes who is demoted and taken away from his beloved ‘Badge of Honour’ TV show, Bud White who is suspended and his partner Buzz Meeks, a crooked cop if ever there was one, who is kicked off the force once and for all with only a short time before his retirement.
As Los Angeles enters into the early days of the New Year, associates of Mickey Cohen, the infamous L.A. mob boss, become victims of gangland-style executions. There’s a massacre at The Night Owl, an all-night coffee shop, and one of the victims turned out to be the recently sacked Buzz Meeks, a crooked cop. Three black youths are immediately ‘collared’ as suspects, although there’s suspicion that someone else is behind the crime.
Exley takes the fact that he’s the only Detective on night duty at the time of the murders, as an opportunity to grab the position of lead-investigator on the case. Captain Smith is less than pleased with this development and blames it on Exley’s lack of experience. Despite getting removed from the case, Exley will not let it go and every time he digs a little deeper underneath the surface of it all, he finds himself not only butting heads with Captain Smith but also coming up against his new nemesis’, White and Vincennes, and their respective separate investigations.
As the plot strands and multitude of characters hurtle along, twisting in and out of one another, we meet, amongst others, a millionaire pornographer named Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn). He runs a high-class call girl operation in which aspiring young actresses are given plastic surgery to make them resemble movie stars; one of them is Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), who, it is said, has been ‘cut’ to look like Veronica Lake. Bud White tracks her down as part of his investigation set in motion to try and uncover the real culprit responsible for the murder of his “mentor”, Buzz Meeks, and a passionate but awkward romance soon develops between the beautifully stunning yet incredibly fragile Bracken and the monosyllabic brute that is White.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by James Ellroy. I consider it to be his best work, although it perhaps does stand equal to his non-fiction book, My Dark Place (which would be an almost impossible book to bring to the screen and I hope they never do!). LA Confidential was considered practically inadaptable to the medium of film because it was a barrage of character (there’s hundred upon hundreds of them in the book, all with speaking parts, all who seem initially important to the narrative) atmosphere and dialogue that many were sceptical could be lifted off the page and put on the screen with the same level of impact. Plots within his book are introduced within the main plot that dip off into areas that we think are going to take one twist or turn but are actually abandoned all together. Characters are introduced and pages are spent introducing them and giving them huge amounts of backstory – only for such characters to prove totally and utterly irrelevant to the proceedings.
On top of this, there seemed to be no way all of these characters and events could be drawn together into a plot that made sense, a problem that exists with most of Ellroy’s work because very few realise that you cannot just lift the pages from his books and throw them up on the screen. They have to be finessed a little. And that’s why Curtis Hanson’s adaptation of LA Confidential is a masterpiece and Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia is kind of turgid. [The very fact that such a crippingly mediocre film was made from one of the greatest crime novels ever written, which Ellroy's The Black Dahlia clearly is, is so frustrating!]
But Hanson and his co-writer, Brian Helgeland, do pull the strands together in an exceptionally clever way by having the important pieces of evidence within each respective officer’s individual case suddenly collide into one another, forcing unlikely alliances between cops who began the film as enemies and are now relying on each other as the only people they can trust enough to stay alive. On top of this, they get Ellroy. They get the tone and texture of his work, and as a result they see the source material not as a jumping off point but a blue-print. Ellroy famous stated that Los Angeles is the only place where a prostitute is one acting role away from stardom, and vice, as he famously wrote, is indeed versa. Curtis Hanson and Brian Hegeland understand that and manage to present such a notion on the screen.
One of the best scenes that exemplify the perfect collision of Ellroy’s original intent and Hanson’s spot-on final delivery takes place in the Formosa Cafe. In the scene, Exley and Vincennes turn up there to question Johnny Stompanato, a hood who may know something about the Cohen killings. His date gives the detectives some cheek. Exley hits back with “A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker,” only for Jack Vincennes to interject “She is Lana Turner!”
One of the reasons L.A. Confidential is so unarguably great, why it thoroughly deserves to be mentioned alongside the likes of Chinatown and The Big Sleep, is that it’s not just plot and atmosphere. There are convincing characters here, not least Kim Basinger’s hooker, whose quiet line, “I thought I was helping you” is one of the movie’s most revealing moments.
Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce were, at the time of making this film, two Australian actors struggling to make the big break stateside after universal acclaim for their previous independent outings, Romper Stomper and The Adventures of Priscella; Queen of the Desert, respectively. Years on we now know that they both made it and Crowe would go on to become an Oscar-winner/A-list egotist whilst Pearce would quietly work his way through the independent movie scene to become one of the most internationally acclaimed actors of our generation. Even if you were watching the film for the first time back on its release, you’d have known this would be the case. Pearce quietly acts everyone else off the screen whilst proving equally hard to categorise into those all-important Hollywood pigeonholes. Crowe, however, screams for attention and with his mature posturing and blank, good looks proves himself to be perfect malleable Hollywood fodder.
Kevin Spacey also deserves a mention for his performance, which uses perfect timing to suggest his character’s ability to move between two worlds while betraying both. He not only has a wonderful scene where he refuses to cooperate with a department investigation – until they threaten his job on the TV show he adores – but he is also responsible for the film’s most powerful moment and proves a worthy catalyst in undoing all that we have seen come before. Two words – “Rollo Tomasi”!
Behind everything though, setting the moral tone and pulling a lot of the plot threads, is the angular captain, always seemingly so helpful. James Cromwell, who as a result of this film we come to forget was the kindly farmer in the much-loved kids film, Babe. Although it’s probably because of that particular recognition that he works so superbly within the role in this film and what he has to do. There’s the same benevolent smile, but the eyes are cold and in his values the viewer can see, perhaps, the road ahead to the disgrace of the Rodney King incident, the recorded racism of the leading officer in the OJ Simpson investigation and most definitely the corruption scandals of the early 21st Century.
That LA Confidential was robbed at the Academy Awards for all the leading awards by no less than James Cameron and his awards-swallowing but hugely undeserving juggernaut that was Titanic, just gives the film an under-appreciated, all-round underdog quality that just makes you adore it even more. The film is immersed in the atmosphere and lore of film noir, but it doesn’t seem or feel like a period picture to the viewer. Yes, there’s the vintage suits and cars and the rat-a-tat, fast-speed style of dialogue delivery from all the characters. Yet if anything it comes across more as the child of 50s film noir, dressed up in the clothes of the 70s conspiracy classics and taught to behave like a modern-day masterpiece.
This film is seductive and beautiful, cynical and twisted, and one of the best ever made.
6 Responses to “THE INDISPENSIBLES – #10: LA CONFIDENTIAL”
Funnily enough this just got knocked out of my top ten today while I was updating my list. 2008 was too good a year, and 2 new entries into the top 10 for me, nearly 3 but I couldn’t bring myself to take Out of Sight out so Wall-E needs to be watched a lot more to see if it can crack the top 10, or hold on to it’s number 12 spot at the moment.
When I first saw LA Confidential it rocketed into the number 3 spot for me, and I still adore the movie, such an well-crafted movie. Maybe because it’s colder than the other movies on my list, could be the reason it’s slipped a bit over the years. I don’t throw it on like some other movies to put me in a good mood, or if I’m feeling shit, to wallow a bit! Don’t know why I’m making excuses, it’s still got the no. 11 spot! Ah it could be because Russell Crowe is in it, and since I first saw it, his true dickish nature has been revealed and he has soured every movie he’s been in for me, didn’t think he’d hit LA Confidential, I can still watch him in it, but obviously the Crowe effect has some part to play! Damn good performance by him in it.
I’m going to take a stab at a couple of predictions for the rest of the list, bar the obvious no. 1 spot! I’m guessing The Usual Suspects, Jaws, possibly the Godfather, and hopefully Magnolia (or at least a Paul Thomas Anderson flick), Blade Runner or Alien, hmmm, maybe an older curve-ball flick… Sunset Boulevard? Double Indemnity? Shit, just realised I forgot to put Double Indemnity on my list… *sigh* back to the drawing board!
I think you’re going to be SOOOOO disappointed with the selection – pretty much all you have mentioned, bar one, are in the already highlighted TOP 50 or in my own personal TOP 100.
Soooooorrry! :blush:
Although there IS, at the request of Jimm, going to be a #0 listing because, as he so passionately explained, “no list ever counts down to zero! Yours should be the first!”
Secretly I think no list does coz, well, its nonsensical, but this is only a bit of “fun” after all so… why not? I’ll do it and that will be his chrimbo present! LOL!
Nah, I won’t be disappointed, in fact only Magnolia is in my top 10 out of the ones I’ve mention, jaws didn’t even make it in to my Top 100. I was just trying to guess what your favourites might be. That’s the great thing about movies though no-ones Top 25 will be the same, because there’s so many factors in play to make a movie a favourite. Actually I’ll be the opposite to disappointed, by the sounds of it you’ve skipped some more obvious choices. Which makes the list more personal and therefore more interesting!
Just for the sake of it. My 25 ‘Indispensibles’ would be
1: Leon
2: Punch-Drunk Love
3:Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4: The Dark Knight
5: se7en
6: The Shawshank Redemption
7: Lars and the Real Girl
8: Out of Sight
9: Magnolia
10: Fargo
11: LA Confidential
12: Wall-E
13: Beautiful Girls
14: Stranger than Fiction
15: Get Shorty
16: Boogie Nights
17: Fight Club
18: Almost Famous (untitled cut)
19: Memento
20: Requiem for a Dream
21: Zodiac
22: There Will Be Blood
23: The Talented Mr. Ripley (There’s something about this movie I just love)
24: The Usual Suspects
25: Sideways
Yours is a quality list and i adore pretty much all of your choices. Giving kudos to Beautiful Girls is class. Well done sir! You MUST be my scribe partner on SHE WALKED IN and WALLS! Honest. You don’t have a single movie that predates 1992. Clearly not a die hard fan of the ‘oldies’ eh? Lol
Not a die hard fan,but a new fan. I’ve only recently started to discover older movies. The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, Rear Window, Double Indemnity, Casablanca and The Graduate appear in my Top 100. I love Billy Wilder’s stuff, it’s only in the last year or two that I’ve really started to watch older movies and they just haven’t quite been able to make the impression on me some more recent stuff does. Love them nonetheless though.
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