One of the most entertaining movies ever

Rating: 8/10 (23 November 2014)

This movie got genuine laughs out of me a few times and it is not even a comedy.
Essentially, LA Confidential is a movie belonging to 3 men and 1 woman: Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger. Kim has been praised and nominated for her role, but frankly, she is the least interesting of the four, at least to this reviewer. Her role is one: tragic composure. Guy is the lead role, Russell is a force of nature and Kevin Spacey is charming and brilliant as usual. The latter is known for playing bad guys but he is even more adorable in good roles and is the number one reason for seeing this movie. His performance is so great I could eat it all right up.
The music score, as in so many detective stories, is jazz tinted with the occasional lonely trumpet insisting this is a 40s detective film noir. That is a bit cliché but the movie does change it up and it is not overly insistent.
The dialogue is a bit too good to the point of fake, like real movie dialogue. It can get quite fast and smart, which means it lacks the natural stupid that can be found in real conversations. And the spicy dialogue makes another problem more apparent: actors are hard to understand. There is a lot of mumbling, under the breath speaking or speaking with a cigarette in the mouth.
The biggest issue though is probably with the story. Like many detective stories tend to do, it has too many turns, requiring more attention than the aforementioned mumbling speech will allow. And when you find out what the motive is.meh, an old story.
Despite the issues with the story, this film flows so well and is so well acted that everything else is just dust in the wind. It shouldn't be as good as it is, but it is.