Three of the best performances you'll ever see

Rating: 8/10 (9 September 1999)

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL is the story of three policemen, Ed Exley, Bud White, and Jack Vincennes, who are involved from different angles in a purge of the police force following a vicious jailhouse beating. One of the purged policemen is later found dead in the Nite Owl Cafe, one of six victims of a brutal shooting massacre. Their investigations uncover a rape, a call girl ring, a police corruption scandal, and more other stuff than I can remember right now.
In a typical cop movie, you're lucky to find one interesting character. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL has three leads, all of whom are fascinating. Never have I seen three men who so finely tread the line between good and evil.
Ed Exley, magnificently realized by Guy Pearce, is a wholesome, bespectacled young man of seemingly iron-clad integrity. When he tells Captain Smith he wants to be a detective, a revealing exchange occurs. Smith: "Would you shoot a guilty man in the back to keep a jury from acquitting him?" Exley: "No." Smith: "Would you plant evidence on a man you knew was guilty to keep him from walking?" Exley: "No." Smith: "Then for God's sake, don't be a detective." And Exley is as competent as he is honest, which we learn during a brilliant interrogation scene. But he is also overweeningly ambitious, and it becomes increasingly unclear whether, or how much, his actions are motivated by his principles or by his desire to get ahead. At the end, it appears that he has made a final choice between his career and his moral values . . . but he's fooled us, and his character remains tantalizingly ambiguous. Like Crowe, Pearce is Australian, but not even the slightest hint of an Aussie twang ever passes his lips; he is utterly convincing playing an American.
Russell Crowe was unjustly passed over by the Academy, failing even to garner a nomination for his wonderful performance as Bud White. White is a hard and violent man, for whom justice is everything, and let the law go screw itself. At times he appears simply to be a thug, as he calmly beats a tied and helpless suspect black and blue as if it were just another day at the office. At others, he is a virtual white knight, risking both his life and his professional career to rescue women who are being beaten by abusive husbands or pimps (and to administer harsh street justice to their abusers). And some of his actions are in between. Crowe delivers White's lines in a terse monotone, always suggesting tension underneath. He does most of his acting with his face and hands; the sharp spasmodic nods and the puckering of his brow always hinting at violence kept under tight control. When he does lose control, he is terrifying, like a raw amoral force of nature. While some will automatically condemn White with the happy homily, "We mustn't take the law into our own hands," other viewers will admire him for his willingness to take responsibility for his own actions rather than hiding behind "the law" or "the system" which ultimately consists of people no better than he.
Then there is Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a man who no longer takes either the law or justice seriously, and is now the technical advisor to the trash show "Hush Hush" first and a cop second. However, as the movie progresses, we can tell that he is becoming bored and dissatisfied with his life. He's forgotten why he joined the force, but he would like to remember. "I doubt you've ever taken a stupid breath," Cap. Smith tells Vincennes, and we agree, but we also sense that he's taken damn few happy ones. Spacey's acting just keeps getting better. In most of his scenes, it's hard to believe that he's reciting scripted lines; he looks and sounds exactly as if he is making words up on the spot, just like people do in real life.
So given these three magnificently drawn characters, rendered by three outstanding actors, why is my IMDb vote for this movie only an 8 rather than a 10? Because of the plot. The same movie with the same story could have been made with three completely different characters, and still been believable. It's not that the story is actually bad; it's one of the most complex mysteries since THE BIG SLEEP, fairly original, and some of the plot twists are downright shocking. But it fails to give us the sense that "character is destiny" as the truly great dramas do; the same things could have happened to anybody else. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL is ultimately a routine detective movie that happens to have some of the best acting and characterization ever seen on the silver screen.
As a side note, I believe L.A. CONFIDENTIAL was very poorly served by its marketing. The trailer, posters and title all suggest a trashy and lurid movie, told entirely from the perspective of Sid Hudgeons, Danny DeVito's sleazemongering tabloid king. There wasn't a hint of the gem that was inside. That's why I ended up seeing it on video, instead of in the theater as it deserved.
Rating: *** out of ****.