This is how to adapt a novel

Rating: Null/10 (6 September 2002)

This is one great movie, rightly deserving its laurels on this site, but the real appreciation of the art behind it is possible only after reading the book. James Ellroy's novel has lots of color and verve, but O.D.'s on tough-guy bravado and runs off on some loopy tangents (like one that can be best described as Walt Disney meets Charles Manson) the film does well to barely hint at or leave alone entirely.
Both book and movie benefit from roundelaying off the same three characters, Bud White, Ed Exley, and Jack Vincennes, and much of the great dialogue in the screenplay is lifted right off the page. Ellroy has a gift for white-hot dialogue, and Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgelund preserve the best of it for the viewer.
What the movie has over the book is focus. Every scene in the movie pops on its own while feeding directly into the next. The novel is dragged down by an array of ancillary characters, most distinguishable only by their level of moral decay, who fly in and out with their side stories so fast its hard to keep track, and harder to care. There's such a thing as too much sleaze. A good example is Jack Vincennes. In the book, he is nicknamed "Trashcan" and is so deeply into porn and narcotics his turnaround seems almost suspect until its too late. In the movie, Kevin Spacey transforms him into a wonderful Dean Martin devil-may-care concoction who scoots through the muck without getting his toes wet, until he makes the mistake of reconnecting with humanity. He sort of does that in the book, too, but in a less convincing way.
Here's what else the movie has that the book doesn't: Rollo Tomassi, the Victory Motel finale, the good-cop bad-cop showdown with the D.A., the poor wanna-be film actor Matt Reynolds whose scene with Vincennes ("When I came to Hollywood, this isn't what I imagined") is one of many that gives the film real heart. It also has some amazing set designs, riveting acting, Kay Starr, and Frank Sinatra.
If you liked the movie, read the novel. It's not boring, and Ellroy knows how to write ("My Dark Places," a memoir of his tough adolescence, is one of the best books I've ever read.) You will gallop through "L.A. Confidential's" 500 pages like Bud White chasing down a wife beater. But mostly I think you'll come away impressed as I was over just how good an adaption can be. It's true in general the book is better than the movie, but this is the exception that not only proves the rule, but shows other screenwriters and directors how it can be done.