Elroy delivers: crisp characters and a classic noir plot

Rating: 9/10 (1 November 1999)

L.A. Confidential is my top pick among American films of 1997, rating second only to Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful. Both movies can attribute their success to one person's efforts; in the case of L.A. Confidential, practically everything is owed to the story's original writer, James Elroy.
Elroy crafted a sharp story around four excellent main characters and several notable multi-dimensional sub-characters. Of the main characters, three protagonists and a central villain, each one had become a policeman for a different reason, each one was markedly different from the other (brought together only by crafty writing) and, with one exception, each steps disturbingly out of character at some point in the story. It is by their stepping out that this movie is a classic film noir and not just another cop and gangster flick.
I give the movie a 9 overall: 10 for the writing and 8's and 7's for everything else. The director, partly as a co-screenwriter, commendably captured the era and added visual crispness to Elroy's story, but I will need to see more from him before I take notice of his own merit. Likewise, the actors stepped neatly into their characters but do not especially stand out: Spacey's good, but better in Usual Suspects; Bassinger's surprisingly good, and most of the other actors were unremarkable. The writing, though, speaks for itself.