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September 19, 1997
Vastly Entertaining Throwback to Hollywood of Old
By JANET MASLIN<
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urtis Hanson's resplendently wicked "L.A. Confidential" is a tough, gorgeous, vastly entertaining throwback to the Hollywood that did things right. As such, it enthusiastically breaks most rules of studio filmmaking today.
Brilliantly adapted from James Ellroy's near-unfilmable cult novel, it casts anything-but-A-list stars (yet) in a story with three leading men, no two of whom can be construed as buddies. It embroils them in a cliche-free, vigorously surprising tale that qualifies as true mystery rather than arbitrary thriller and that revels in its endless complications. Take a popcorn break and you'll be sorry.
"L.A. Confidential" roams the full expanse of Ellroy's 1950s Los Angeles, a film noir paradise of smoldering evil and knee-weakening glamour with a dirty little secret behind every palm tree. As conjured first by the author and then by a film uncannily faithful to his prose style (though it deftly shrinks the convoluted plot), this is a place best symbolized by its favorite forms of corruption. Mobsters, drugs, brutally racist cops and wish-fulfilling whores made to resemble movie stars all conspire to drag the film through the gutter while, in terms of achievement, it reaches for the stars.
With perfect timing, "L.A. Confidential" also contemplates what it calls "sinnuendo," the leering tabloid mentality that speaks to this story's secret dreams. Danny DeVito embodies this as a gleeful Sid Hudgens (a character whom Hanson has called "the Thomas Edison of tabloid journalism"), who is the unscrupulous editor of a publication called Hush-Hush and winds up linked to many of the other characters' nastiest transgressions.
Sid's flawless cynicism sets the tone not only for the film's ersatz movie-star elegance but also for its police, who often share his ethical constructs. "Don't start trying to do the right thing, boy-o," a police official tells one of his men, in the razor-sharp language of Ellroy's sinewy characters. "You haven't had the practice."
The essential questions throughout this captivating film are whether and how anyone will rise above its quagmire. Since the answer must be yes (some genre rules are inviolable), "L.A. Confidential" leavens its vice with affecting tenderness. Bud White (Russell Crowe) may be a thug and bruiser, but he melts at the white satin vision of Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), a call girl whose face, hair, costumes and bungalow are meant to conjure thoughts of Veronica Lake. The film's valid idea of good old-fashioned steam heat is to have Lynn lead Bud into her real bedroom -- the one filled with mementoes of her native Arizona -- at dawn.
Late in "L.A. Confidential," in a scene for which viewers will be endlessly grateful, a character being interrogated finally gives a brief synopsis of the plot. That's no easy matter. But among its main points are that Bud, like Ellroy (as described in his fine, wrenching memoir, "My Dark Places"), is fiercely bothered by acts of violence against women. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), his priggish colleague on the police force, will do anything for his own advancement. And Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), who dines out on being the police adviser to a television show like "Dragnet," often finds himself right up Sid Hudgens' alley. When they conspire to set up movie stars on vice charges, Sid gets the story. Jack gets to preen while making the arrest.
The crime that envelops all these characters is a mysterious massacre at a coffee shop called the Nite Owl. The investigation, which makes a hero of Exley, leads to three black men. Having sanctioned the Christmastime beating of Mexican prisoners at police headquarters, the Los Angeles Police Department cannot be accused of undue racial sensitivity, and indeed there is more to the Nite Owl matter than anyone first imagines. Since "L.A. Confidential" is not a story to waste time on innocent victims, the search for the three black men yields a separate, heinous crime of its own.
Without strain or affectation, "L.A. Confidential" recalls "Chinatown" in drawing an entire socioecomic cross-section and elaborate web of corruption out of an investigation that starts small. This time, high up on the food chain resides Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn), who finances his taste for modern architecture with a business interest in the oldest profession. Among the film's other privileged characters are a district attorney (Ron Rifkin) who is a tabloid headline waiting to happen, and a ruefully knowing police captain. James Cromwell, a long way from "Babe," is mordantly good in the latter role.
Hanson, who is himself a long way from "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle," "Bad Influence" and "The River Wild" and who now brings the dark side of his earlier work to dazzling fruition, achieves casting coups both large and small.
Spacey is at his insinuating best, languid and debonair, in a much more offbeat performance than this film could have drawn from a more conventional star. And the two Australian actors, tightly wound Pearce and fiery, brawny Crowe, qualify as revelations. Both performances should send viewers off to the video store, with Crowe's past credits including "Romper Stomper," "Virtuosity" and "The Quick and the Dead." The bigger surprise is Pearce, who was better known for his Abba jokes as Felicia in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert."
Much of the strength of "L.A. Confidential" (which also makes the most of Ms. Basinger in her worldly calendar-girl role) comes from tiny roles, of which there are many. Hanson relies on strong, unfamiliar faces -- a strange bereaved mother, a cynical coroner -- to etch the film's story points and underscore its fundamental power to surprise. Though film noir revivals are often wearily derivative, this one casts a long shadow of its own.
Ellroy, as adapted by Hanson and Brian Helgeland, makes his long-overdue burst into movies as an indelibly smart, acerbic voice. The dialogue throughout the film is rewardingly concise and dark. "Looks like his bodyguard had a conflict of interest," somebody says of a corpse. Or: "You have any proof?" "The proof got his throat slit." Or (on the verge of the film's climactic shootout, furious even by Hong Kong standards): "All I ever wanted was to measure up to my father." "Here's your chance."
Or: "You're like Santa Claus with a list, Bud. Except everyone on it's been naughty."
"L.A. Confidential" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It walks on the wild side with brief and startling violence, fleeting nudity, sexual situations and redolent seamy details.
PRODUCTION NOTES L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
Directed by Curtis Hanson; written by Brian Helgeland and Hanson, based on the novel by James Ellroy; director of photography, Dante Spinotti; edited by Peter Honess; music by Jerry Goldsmith; produced by Arnon Milchan, Hanson and Michael Nathanson; released by Warner Brothers. Running time: 136 minutes. This film is rated R.
With: Kevin Spacey (Jack Vincennes), Russell Crowe (Bud White), Guy Pearce (Ed Exley), James Cromwell (Dudley Smith) and Kim Basinger (Lynn Bracken).
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