Reinventing the "Good Cop - Bad Cop" Trope ...

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2017)

You know what all neo-noir masterpieces have in common? They didn't even try to be noir, their power relied on confident directing, perfect writing and solid acting and the whole thing just looked fresh, original and possibly the best thing for a movie: to be watchable and re-watchable. This is "L.A. Confidential" in a nutshell, one of the best movies of the 90's.
Adapted from a novel by James Ellroy, the plot is the kind of masterpiece of stylish complexity that is just too labyrinthine for the big screen, yet Curtis Hanson compresses everything into a neat episodic structure so that by the end of each act, we've progressed in the comprehension of what is going on and the changes it has on the main protagonists. As a matter of fact, the characterization matters more than the investigation, which is saying a lot because the investigation surrounding a massacre at a seedy night-club (naturally, only the tip of the iceberg), is captivating as hell.
But let's get back to the characters, this is the meatiest part of the film. "L.A. Confidential" focuses on three cops who couldn't have been more different: Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) and Bud White (Russell Crowe).
Vincennes is a consultant for a "Dragnet"-like show called "Badge of Honor", which makes him a movie star by proxy. What does that mean? Simply that in the early 50's, Hollywood became the new Sodom what's with all the booze, drugs, the criminal wave following the arrest of local mobster Mickey Cohen and of course trashy star-studded tabloids' headlines covered by Hush-Hush magazine editor Sid Hudgens (Danny De Vito). Vincennes embraced the sleaziness of the city without letting its soil his nice suit, he bribes, blackmails and takes ethical shortcuts but never at the expenses of law enforcement. As his Captain smartly advises "don't try to do the right thing, you haven't had the practice", sill, Vincent might not be clean but he's the essence of cool, so we forgive him.
Exley is the steely ambitious college-boy whose glasses and 'Holier-than-thou' attitude earns him a range of reactions that go from tacit suspicion to sheer contempt; it also earns him his first promotion thanks to a fine tactical move. Exley might not be likable but he's not despicable either because we admire a cop who'd trade popularity for principles. Finally, Bud White strikes as the anti-Exley, this is a guy who hits first and asks the questions later, he doesn't rat on his partners and is known for his particular hatred toward woman-beaters. He happens to be the right-hand man of Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) and occasionally, the right-fist man when some punchy methods are required against criminals. And at the top of the pyramid, Dudley Smith makes good use of White's brutal force and Exley's by-the-book standards. He knows pretty well how to use his boys like so many pieces of a chess game and even dispose of some nuisance when comes a risk to compromise the image of LAPD.
So from this gallery of original character, It all comes down to one pivotal moment where our opinions are challenged. Exley stop to be an ambitious opportunist, but a man with a personal record to settle and who knows how to be tough and bad-ass, White shows a warmer side of him notably through his interactions with a hooker named Lynn (Kim Basinger) and Vincennes also has a moment of realization, that can't be spoiled. The film is about three men who become aware of their limitations but move forward, because there's always a line you mustn't cross. Speaking of Basinger, she won her Oscar for her performance as Lynn, a hooker who screams 'femme fatale' but whispers an emotional fragility that channels Faye Dunaway in "Chinatown". In fact, she embodies one essential aspect of the film; nothing is exactly what it seems.
This notion serves one of the film's many subplots, involving a doctor, played by David Strathairn, turning escort-girls into celebrities' lookalikes. The confusion culminates with an embarrassing but hilarious mistake committed by Excel, one. that shows how cinema, police and crime were easily interlocked, and that the city of angels couldn't do without a few devils here and there. The omnipresence of corruption is persistent in the plot and it's less a matter than realizing who is bad and who is not, but to which extent they are. And you can't get to such multi-layered level complexity without top-notch acting. It is a credit to the late Hanson to have cast the two fresh faces of Pearce and Crowe to star in an American period picture. Speaking of these two actors, one of the many delights of "L.A. Confidential" is to see these rivals with diverging methods realizing that they serve the same case and need to cooperate.
The screenplay (second Oscar-winning category) is quite self-conscious about the way it retreads the good cop / bad cop cliché, so it uses a scene that reinvents the trope in such an inventive and brutal way, "L.A. Confidential" becomes immune to any comparison. When a pompous big shot ends up panting in a fetal positions, you know these guys mean business.
Well, that's what "L.A. Confidential" in a nutshell, a movie that means business with guys who learn a thing or two in the process. It might get a little conventional during the climactic showdown but to say something that can only be applied to the best noir movies: it's not the destination that counts, but the journey.