3/4 of the movie is brilliant, but 1/4 of it almost breaks the entire film

Rating: 7/10 (11 July 2018)

I want to say that L.A. Confidential is a movie that I (somehow) had never heard of nor had any interest in seeing. I'm pretty sure I had seen the poster before, but that was all I knew of it. So even though I am reviewing this movie 20 years after its release, I have not had the plot spoiled to me (though I'm sure I've seen movie that were influenced by it). I'm going to try and avoid spending too much time on the positives of this film because I think there are some pretty glaring issues with this film that have gone unnoticed.
That being said, the vast majority of this film is a blast to watch. Most of the characters are very interesting, unique, and well thought out which was probably the most important aspect of the film to get right (next to the story). Exley was my personal favorite because you could tell he genuinely cared about justice and keeping the law in order. He wins his fights by being smarter than everyone else and this makes him an interesting character. The main mystery of the movie is a little incoherent at times, but it was still rather engaging for me and I was invested in seeing where it would go.
The strongest elements of this movie have to be the action and the character interaction. Almost all of the dialogue is sharp and entertaining to watch.

Now, onto the aspects of this film that I thought almost broke it:
Bud White... my goodness is this character hard to watch. Russel Crowe does a great job portraying him, so it is not the fault of the actor, but the character himself is insufferable. Granted, my view on this is probably different than those who saw this movie in the 90s because the whole political climate as of late is different, but this guy is just an awful "white knight". Essentially, he is a ball of murderous rage 24/7 and is constantly looking for an excuse to save women who don't need saving. Oh, there is a woman with several men, how about I go over there and beat them up and then figure out if there is an issue. What makes him even worse is that he breaks the law and even plants evidence/lies on multiple occasions just to satisfy himself. For example, why didn't he tell the woman that there was a dead body under he house? It turns out that his reason for being a murderous killing machine against anyone who mistreats women is because his mom was abused to the point of death and he had to watch. Great, that kind of makes sense, but it doesn't excuse him pulling guns on people, starting fights, and grabbing people's crotches to torture them.
Now, this is just one character, but unfortunately his "romantic subplot" is another big issue with this film.
The romance in this movie sucks. It just does. It doesn't feel natural and it is entirely forced. Bud White somehow falls in love with a prostitute, but it is never explained WHY they fall in love. For instance, the prostitute says really cliche stupid stuff like, "You're special" or "you're different" but the only thing different about him is that "he doesn't hide his emotions" which is an incredibly stupid line because she HAS NEVER INTERACTED WITH HIM OUTSIDE OF HER HOUSE (except for them going to the movie on an occasion). Their romance is so forced that I was legitimately surprised when they started to make out, because there was no build-up to it.
Fine, one bad romantic relationship, but this movie has TWO! WITH THE SAME GIRL!
Exley goes to the prostitutes house to investigate her because he thinks the relationship between her and Bud White is false and that she was paid off to do it... and then he rapes/has sex with her?!?!?! It's really confusing because he has been established to be the brains of the team and is vastly smarter than everyone else, yet when he is prying for information from someone who he think is manipulating them he then decides to have sex with that said person and assumes that he is not being manipulated... by a prostitute.
Really. A prostitute manipulating someone into sex? THAT IS LITERALLY THE FIRST THING THAT SHOULD COME INTO HIS MIND! What makes this plot point even worse is that it was a set-up and now Bud White tries to murder Exley in an attempt to get back at him for having sex with HIS prostitute (again, she is a prostitute. She is having sex with tons of people. Chillax). What makes things really odd is that the other cops in station don't seem to mind the fact that Bud White is murdering Exley? Someone walks into the room, Bud White pushes them out, and then no other cops investigate. Seriously?
Long story short, all of this was the bad guy's plan (who was quite obviously the bad guy from the moment we saw him, so it wasn't really a plot-twist). The final action sequence was fantastic and really well set-up, and it was nice to see Exley and Bud White work together instead of at each other's throats. While I did enjoy the villain, his plan was super contrived and required a myriad of coincidences to actually work. Again, it's just a movie, but it is a little troublesome.
The main theme of this movie seems to be that following the law completely doesn't always work but breaking the law constantly for the sake of justice isn't the best either. It's a compromise movie. However, the issue with this is that Exley pretty much got everything he wanted through brains and I don't think that he ever really needed Bud White... at all. I honestly can't think of a situation where Bud White's viciousness got him something that he couldn't have gotten himself. On the other end, I don't think Bud White ever learned to not be vicious. The only thing he possibly learned was to maybe not let his emotions get the best of him because he nearly killed Exley (and he hits the prostitute which makes him like his father), but then he goes back to being a psychopath right after that so I don't think he learned anything. This is a fairly big issue with the movie's message, because it doesn't really work. None of the characters (who are alive by the end of the movie) really change except for Exley, who allows more illegal activity to happen... yay?
While I think the vast majority of this film is great, I think the biggest issue this movie has is the character drama and the movie's message. The character drama feels so forced and fake that I almost stopped watching the movie because I realized that the established traits of the characters didn't ultimately matter. Anyone could break character to make the plot go in a certain direction, which then cuts out any real sense of tension.
Good movie, great acting, great action, okay mystery, bad drama, awful romance. That's my take on it, at least.