A Great Novel Becomes A Good Movie

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 2002)

That's not a knock. Well, not much of one, anyway. Curtis Hanson was handed a near-impossible task: translate the best crime novel in a generation - one that requires a six or seven-hour running time to render faithfully - into a two-hour film. Give him credit for doing a good job of it, but let's not get so dewy-eyed that we ignore what was lost here: not just vital subplots but depth, layering, richness of detail. Gone are not only the Inez Soto/Dieterling-cum-Disney angle (and the piercing social commentary threaded into this sub-narrative) but the entire background/motivating force to the Ed Exley character, now reduced to a by-the-book, son-of-a-dead-patrolman tightass. Further, the concluding half-hour piles the climaxes together, one after another, straining and finally shredding credulity. The decision-making involved (likely forced down Hansen, Ellroy and screenwriter Helgeland's throats by the moneymen holding the pursestrings to the entire project) has also robbed us of any chance of seeing the entire LA Quartet brought to the screen, at least in any recognizable form, now that the Dudley Smith cat's out of the bag & dispensed with.
So, then...what's on the PLUS side of the ledger here? Pacing and performances. While the characters of Bud White, Ed Exley & Jack Vincennes have been pre-softened for your viewing convenience, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce & Kevin Spacey pour everything they have into their roles, and...for the duration of the film...you believe in these characters. Crowe may be the current flavor-of-the-month, but DAMN he's good, smoldering like the burning tip of a Chesterfield. Spacey works vocal inflections and raised eyebrows like a virtuoso musician (he patterned his interpretation after Hanson's suggestion of Dean Martin as the ideal Vincennes, were this film actually made in '53) and Pearce, in the most thankless of the three roles, overcomes both the scenario's short-shrifting of the character's motivations and his own too-youthful appearance, managing to turn both to his advantage. The female lead, Ms Basinger, while overpraised, does fine, heartfelt work; and Danny DeVito is dependably Danny DeVito. All the secondary roles are both beautifully-cast and expertly-played as well, which helps the production immeasurably. James Cromwell is physically wrong for Dudley Smith, yet makes the role his own, emanating a bottomless pool of menace; Tomas Arana makes a wonderfully slimy Bruening, and David Straithairn and John Mahan both seem plucked from the 40s - they are uncanny physical matches to both their characters and the era being evoked. And Curtis Hansen keeps the action hurtling forward, a series of snowballs rolling downhill, picking up speed & force as they coalesce into one single storyline. Anyone not familiar with the novel is going to have damned little to complain about, and even Ellroy fans will grudgingly admit that the film being as good as it is constitutes a minor miracle. Still, those viewers who know only the film should make tracks to Ellroy's novel. Their pleasure will only be intensified by that small sting of regret at What Might Have Been.