Intricate plot, excessive violence, and the inability of Kim Basinger

Rating: Null/10 (8 December 1998)

L.A. Confidential had the opportunity to be excellent. Gorgeous setting, wonderful directing, adequate acting, and then it does a NYPD BLUE and down plays into police brutality and pointless, excessive violence. Guy I-have-perfect-bone-structure-Pearce gets a bit too intense for the moment on occasion. Kevin Spacey is of course extrordinary, Danny Devito is good, Russell Crow watchable. Then there's Kim Basinger, who won an Oscar for her role. Apparently there was some police brutality done to the judges, or would it be management brutality. Basinger is the most unimaginitive, boring, unentertaining person is this film. I would have LOVED to fast forward through her scenes, Gloria Stuart should have won for her monologues alone, in comparison to Kim Bring-the-teleprompter-closer-Basinger. And then there's the violence, I would have loved for this to be a psychological thriller, I believe that would have been much better. The plot could have been worked around it, there is such thing as off screen violence ,and it usually works just as well.