Thrilling and powerful

Rating: 9/10 (23 September 2011)

Rewatching L.A. Confidential for the first time in 13 years, I was surprised at how much better it is than I remembered, and how much better it stood the test of time than other movies of its time, Se7en for example. It's a genre piece for sure - Curtis Hanson is not after originality, he uses every trick in the book and fills his film with genre clichés, but he does it so cleverly that those clichés seem fresh and effective like they haven't been in many years, subverting every expectation the seasoned viewer has, while never actually leaving or deconstructing the genre.
As for the cast - not one of the three leads are among my favorites, but all of them are at least partly pre-fame here - Kevin Spacey after his first Oscar but before his second, Russell Crowe before Gladiator, Guy Pearce before Memento - and they all do a terrific job, especially Spacey. James Cromwell, one of my favorite character actors, is chillingly good, and Basinger and DeVito deliver too. Very few police dramas manage to work a large cast of unique and well-developed characters as well as this one, and it makes for one of the most entertaining, powerful, thrilling movies I've seen in a long time.