Hey everybody, it’s movie time! I’m re-writing the words from the start of a Styx hit song and saying today is “movie time!” For movie time today, let’s watch “L.A. Confidential.” Here’s a powerhouse of a film that delivers a punch in the gut, then an uppercut. “L.A. Confidential” is among the best-ever in American cinema … right up there with “The Godfather(s)” and “The Deer Hunter” and is nearly as a visceral a kick to the groin as “The Deer Hunter,” which I consider the most powerful movie I’ve ever seen.
“L.A. Confidential” is the story of (mostly) good guys and girls and (very) bad guys and girls and it is a morality play framed with violence and cruelty. It is the story of a flawed cop (Kevin Spacey); the story of a menacing cop (Russell Crowe); and the story of a high-class hooker who is the spark to both sin and redemption (Kim Basinger in an Oscar winning role).
I note how powerful you’ll find “L.A. Confidential” because I’ve watched it numerous times to enjoy the work of … well, everyone from the headliners to Danny DeVito to Ron Rifkin to James Cromwell to Guy Pearce.
“L.A. Confidential” is told in a 1950s noir tabloid world of Los Angeles. From gangsters to cops-on-the-take to a variety of miscreants and early narrative by DeVito as the “Hush-Hush” tabloid editor, you’re dragged through the sleaze of Tinseltown and the dreadful fallout from the battle between the real good guys and the real bad guys – because sometimes you couldn’t tell early in the film.
Although he’s a reputed international-class dirtbag, Spacey shows just why it is unfortunate that he’s a generational-talented actor as well as being an alleged sleazeball … he just shines in his work in this one but you get queasy considering him as a person.
Just as good is Crowe as the brutal detective who physically punishes wife beaters and abusers of women. He’s so good that his menace comes off him like mist off dry ice and his violence is obviously only a flicker beneath his skin. He goes from the edge of the ethical pond to rising to the height of avenging angel on the side of the good guys.
It’s pretty much a disgrace these two actors didn’t win Oscars for their work.
Basinger did an Oscar-worthy turn in “L.A. Confidential” as the hooker who is used to drive a wedge between Crowe and Pearce, who plays the mostly goody-two shoes, strait-laced career-climbing cop. She then remains in their world as the thread leading the two men to both sacrifice and violence.
Oh, well. It’s time to stop and let you see it again. You won’t have any trouble at all finding “L.A. Confidential” and when you do, you will find it even more amazing than you did the first time … I guarantee it!
(CLICK here … to read my review of “L.A. Confidential”)
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