L.A. Confidential [Blu-ray]

L.A. Confidential [Blu-ray]
by Curtis Hanson

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, Russell Crowe
Director: Curtis Hanson
Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 138 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-09-23
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video

Movie Reviews of L.A. Confidential [Blu-ray]

Movie Review: Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush
Summary: 5 Stars

------------------------
Brett Chase: Excuse me, ma'am; just the facts.
==================================

L.A. Confidential is based on the novel by James Ellroy. Known for his short, staccato prose style--called telegraphic--like the tap, tap, tapping of a telegram sent in Morse code, Ellroy wrote 4 books set in Los Angeles; all sharing similar time frames and some of the same characters. Beginning with 1987's The Black Dahlia, the series is called The Los Angeles Quartet (not to be confused with Felix Slatkin's Los Angeles String Quartet).

Screenwriter Brian Helgeland and Director/screenwriter Curtis Hanson loved the material and had a vision for how it would translate to a great film. With the right attention to period detail, the right soundtrack, and the right feel for the film noir style, they would really have something. The soundtrack, with songs by Johnny Mercer, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Sammy Cahn, Harry Warren, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen; sung by Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Kay Starr, Betty Hutton, and Lee Wiley; or performed by Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan showed their exquisite taste. How could they go wrong?

Casting Russell Crowe as sensitive brute detective Bud White sealed the deal. He would later win an Oscar for The Gladiator, but here is where Crowe first showed his huge potential to be at once tough and tender. His cop was hard and brutal, but he had a soft spot when it came to females in peril:

---------------
[Dick Stensland arrives with liquor for a party]
Officer: What took you, Stensland?
Dick Stensland: My partner stopped to help a damsel in distress. He's got his priorities all screwed up.
========================

Russell! Put the phone down! Step away from the phone, Mr. Crowe!

I count three flavors of corruption here:
1.) L.A. Police Dept.
2.) Los Angeles
3.) Hollywood

There is corruption within the L.A.P.D. One scene, based on a real event, has them going on a drunken rampage and beating Latino prisoners on Christmas Eve. Besides racism, there is also a goon squad that attacks mobsters from out of town who try to establish the mob in L.A. Mickey Cohen is a prime example. Though they are stamping out crime, could it be that they are just trying to eliminate competition for their own criminal enterprises? Ask Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) about that.

The City of Los Angeles is also infected with corruption, with land development deals and zoning decided in ways that favor men such as Pierce Patchett (David Straithairn). Not only does Pierce have a stake in such things, he also runs drugs and has a brothel of prostitutes who resemble movie stars. To get his way on the land deals he gets dirt on politicians and D.A. Ellis Loew (Ron Rifkin).

Helping Patchett gather and spread the dirt is Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito). Hudgens has found a gold mine in the scandals and scrapes of Movie Stars in Tinsel town, and the public's endless appetite for salacious gossip. DeVito might have been the weakest choice in casting, just because he is a little bit too familiar (what is Louie DePalma doing away from the Taxi dispatch?), but he kind of grows on you--like a fungous.

---------------------
Sid Hudgens: He's on a night train to the big adios.
=============================

It is interesting how the three kinds of corruption are all intertwined and intermingled:

----------------------------------
Captain Dudley Smith: [interrogation at the Victory Motel] Reciprocity, Mr. Hudgens, is the key to every relationship.
=============================================

At the time this movie was made the OJ Trial was all the rage, and therefore the theme of how scandal and tabloid journalism was such a huge industry, casting a distorting rather than revealing spotlight on truth and justice, really resonated. Prescient it was, too. It came out just before the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton affair almost brought down a President. The magazine that Hudgens ran was called Hush-Hush, but it was based on the real life magazine Confidential, perhaps the precursor to all the TMZs, Matt Drudges, and Perez Hiltons of today.

Seemingly at odds with Bud White and the rest of the L.A.P.D. is Detective Ed Exley (Guy Pearce). He goes against the grain, doing everything by the book, but rubbing the cops the wrong way. Though his father was a legend in the L.A.P.D., his son is barely tolerated; yet he is such a skillful player of police politics that he rises through the ranks. He is held in scorn for wearing glasses, yet proves to be a tough cop after all. Guy Pearce does a good job with the role, in spite of the fact that he is British and had previously distinguished himself by playing a drag queen in an Australian film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. With Russell Crowe being from New Zealand, you had two non-Americans in the lead roles, playing L.A. cops. Not for an instant did I doubt either one:

-----------------------
Bud White: The Nite Owl case made you. Do you want to tear all that down?
Ed Exley: With a wrecking ball... You want to help me swing it?
=======================================

Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) also stood out at the intersection of Hollywood and Vice. His claim to fame was that he worked as a technical advisor for Badge of Honor, a show based on Jack Webb's Dragnet. Brett Chase is Badge of Honor's Webb:

----------------------
Jack Vincennes: I'm the technical advisor. I teach Brett Chase how to walk and talk like a cop.
Jack's Dancing Partner: Brett Chase doesn't walk and talk like you.
Jack Vincennes: Well, that's 'cause he's the television version. America isn't ready for the real me.
==========================

Vincennes also works hand-in-hand with Sid Hudgens--at least until his glimmer of remorse moment. He takes pity on actor Matt Reynolds (Simon Baker) who is being used to blackmail D.A. Ellis Loew (by the way, Simon Baker is now the title character in the hit show The Mentalist; and Ron Rifkin, who plays the D.A., is on Television program Brothers and Sisters). Yes, Sgt. Vincennes finally tries to do the right thing. Too bad no good deed goes unpunished:

--------------------------------
Captain Dudley Smith: Have you a valediction, boyo?
Jack Vincennes: [gasping out a name] ... Rollo Tamasi.
===============================================

What? Rollo Tamasi? Like "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane, you'll just have to watch L.A. Confidential to see what significance Rollo Tamasi holds.

Last but not least, Kim Basinger as Veronica Lake Look-alike hooker Lynn Bracken was great. Besides looking like Lake she also had great chemistry with Russell Crowe... and Guy Pearce... and the City Councilman (Jim Metzler)... and... Curtis Hanson would later use Basinger to play Eminem's mom in 8 Mile.

--------------------------------------
Lynn Bracken: You're the first man in five years who didn't tell me I look like Veronica Lake inside of a minute.
Bud White: You look better than Veronica Lake.
===================================================

So, the bottom line is that L.A. Confidential was great in every way a film can be great. My only qualm is that there was no Frank Sinatra on the soundtrack, though Frankie does make an appearance in the archival footage.

--------------------
Dick Stensland: You're like Santa Claus with that list, Bud, except everyone on it's been naughty.
=================================

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHIES:

KIM BASINGER

8 Mile (Widescreen Edition) (2002) .... Stephanie Smith (Directed by Curtis Hanson)
9 1/2 Weeks (1986) .... Elizabeth
Fool for Love (1985) .... May

RUSSELL CROWE

A Beautiful Mind (2001) .... John Nash
Gladiator (Widescreen Edition) (2000) .... Maximus
The Insider (1999) .... Jeffrey Wigand

KEVIN SPACEY

American Beauty (Widescreen Edition) (1999) .... Lester Burnham
Hurlyburly (New Line Platinum Series) (1998) .... Mickey
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) .... John Williamson

GUY PEARCE

The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Extra Frills Edition) (1994) .... Adam/Felicia

--------------------------
Sid Hudgens: Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.
===================================

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Summary of L.A. Confidential [Blu-ray]

Bluray Disc

In a time when it seems that every other movie makes some claim to being a film noir, L.A. Confidential is the real thing--a gritty, sordid tale of sex, scandal, betrayal, and corruption of all sorts (police, political, press--and, of course, very personal) in 1940s Hollywood. The Oscar-winning screenplay is actually based on several titles in James Ellroy's series of chronological thriller novels (including the title volume, The Big Nowhere, and White Jazz)--a compelling blend of L.A. history and pulp fiction that has earned it comparisons to the greatest of all Technicolor noir films, Chinatown. Kim Basinger richly deserved her Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a conflicted femme fatale; unfortunately, her male costars are so uniformly fine that they may have canceled each other out with the Academy voters: Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, and James Cromwell play LAPD officers of varying stripes. Pearce's character is a particularly intriguing study in Hollywood amorality and ambition, a strait-laced "hero" (and son of a departmental legend) whose career goals outweigh all other moral, ethical, and legal considerations. If he's a good guy, it's only because he sees it as the quickest route to a promotion. --Jim Emerson

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Mystery & Suspense

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