Review of L.A. Confidential (1997) by Jeff B — 19 Nov 2015

Radiating confidence beat for white knuckle beat, this expertly sharp shooted adaptation of James Ellroy's brilliantly Byzantine slice of L.A. Noir is as much a high-minded mystery as it is sinfully entertaining. One quarter of the crime fiction maestro's LA Quartet (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and White Jazz round out this A-Level book series), the novel is smart, serpentine, and seemingly too unwieldly to transcribe for the screen. Screenwriter Brian Helgeland, however, somehow hard-boils the dense puzzler and rich - practically living and breathing - characters at its center into a boozy black confection. Speaking of black, darkness bleeds into every frame - be it location or metaphorical - but this motion picture isn't steeped in shadows as a noir throwback. Rather, director Curtis Hanson frames the action with a very modern approach, naturalistic lighting and period detail as background but never lauded over at the front and center. No, that spot gets reserved for the hard-hitting star-making performances, be it Russell Crowe's feral blunt-force cop, Guy Pearce's bookish scheming detective, Kevin Spacey's slick angle-playing dick, James Cromwell's political blarney-spewing police captain, Danny DeVito's mischievious sleazy tabloid writer, or Kim Bassinger's manipulative femme fatale (deservedly Oscar-winning). The pace emerges as the true star, however. Impossibly, Hanson and Helgeland turn this ridiculously complex nearly 500-page thriller into a taut 138-minute police chase, cynicism and seduction fully intact.

In this R-rated detective tale set in 1950s LA, three policemen - one strait-laced (Pearce), one brutal (Crowe), and one sleazy (Spacey) - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.

Chinatown rules this roost. That said, LA Confidential will always get compared with Roman Polanski's 1974 LA Noir classic, the crown jewel of hard-boiled detective tales on film. Whether a compliment or backhanded compliment, this comparison short-sights the shear genius of translating Ellroy's wholly unique style. Stripped down in words but somehow loaded with ripe, ridiculously researched detail, his prose seems spare but packs a deeply and multiply rooted punch. It's easy to characterize him as a Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler aping scribe, but his immersive plotting takes readers to an entirely new and involving mantle of crime writing. Granted, it's a dark cab ride but the fact that Hanson and Helgeland short-cut the dense wordsmithing without losing the pulp speaks highly of their adaptation. They capture his jazzy verve using a modern edge that pits us all on a 5-Star collision course with one of the most absorbing City of Fallen Angels films of all time.

Bottom line: Asphalt Jungle Love.