"Welcome to Los Angeles, the city of the future."

Rating: 10/10 (27 November 2011)

"L.A. Confidential" is the kind of gritty crime drama you can really sink your teeth into with compelling characters and a complex story that brings Los Angeles of the 1950's to life in a big way. You have to pay attention though, because there are a host of main players all vying for attention when they're on screen, and their stories intertwine involving hookers, a heroin racket, and corrupt cops all over the place. All of the principals are stand-out, so it's tough to single out any of the main players; all are on top of their game and convey their characters effectively. Guy Pearce looked like he might have been out of his league at the outset among actors like Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, James Cromwell and Kim Basinger, but his character grows throughout the story until he leads the final charge to take down the corrupt chief of detectives Dudley Smith (Cromwell). Comparisons to 1974's "Chinatown" are inevitable and are all over this board, so I won't dwell on the obvious. Of the two films, I'll take L.A. for it's even MORE intricate plotting and writing. The fictional Rollo Tomasi may have been inspired by the non-existent Keyser Soze, but since we knew that up front, we see it utilized as the hook Exley (Pearce) uses to put two and two together. All in all, this is a masterful film and one of the best that doesn't quite crack my Top Ten List, but it just misses ever so slightly. Maybe if it had been done in black and white.