Hardboiled melodrama of crime and corruption amid 1950s Hollywood...

Rating: Null/10 (4 May 2001)

One of the most hard-hitting, compulsively watchable movies of the '90s is this complex story of crime and police corruption amid lavish life-styles in and around the Hollywood of the 1950s. Never read the James Ellroy novel but I understand it's even more complex and contains even more sub-plots than the film--so you have to admire the screenplay that manages to dovetail all the main details together in a way that leads to a smashing climax. Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey do standout jobs in the leads--and Guy Pearce is riveting as the intensely ambitious man who eventually joins forces with Crowe to solve the crime. James Cromwell is chilling as the Chief of Detectives, as is Danny DeVito as a tabloid journalist. Kim Basinger is good as the Veronica Lake look-alike--but did she really deserve an Oscar for this? This kind of hard-hitting shoot-em-up melodrama is a throwback to the Cagney and Robinson crime epics of the '30s--but the gore is more graphic and the sadism more intense. Not one for the kiddies--but mature audiences should find this a knockout.
And yes, nice use of old pop hits--but "Accentuate the Positive" belongs to the early 1940s, as does Veronica Lake's peek-a-boo hairdo. The story is set in the early '50s, but by 1952 that Johnny Mercer hit was ancient history and Lake was no longer using that style.
And one more minor quibble: the Lana Turner look-alike did not in any way resemble the real LT. I'm sure all of Lana's fans would agree on that one! Lana had a much classier look and finer features.