The Best Film of 1997

Rating: 9/10 (4 March 2015)

For my money, the best film of 1997 was LA Confidential, an atmospheric, richly complex, and completely riveting period piece centering on murder and police corruption in 1950's Los Angeles, superbly mounted by director Curtis Hanson.
Brian Helgelund's flawless, Oscar-winning screenplay, adapted from a novel by James Ellroy, beautifully interlaces stories of growing organized crime in 1950's Los Angeles becoming a virus that is hard to control with police corruption that appears to be growing in equal doses.
The film focuses on a series of brutal murders that become a primary focus for three very different kinds of cops. Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) is a straight-laced by-the-books cop trying to crawl from under the image of his late father, also a decorated officer of the law. Bud White (Russell Crowe) is a cop who is serious about getting a criminal behind bars and who is not above beating a confession out of a perp or planting evidence on him to guarantee a conviction. He also has a weakness for damsels in distress and will walk through fire for a woman he feels is in danger. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is an officer who is more passionate about his job as the technical adviser on a television show than his actual police duties. It is the flawless interlacing of these three characters and their individual methods in pursuing justice that make this drama sizzle.
This film is so beautifully constructed and such complete attention is required that if you miss five minutes of this film and then return to it, you will be totally confused...for me, the primary aspect of a perfect screenplay.
Hanson has pulled uniformly superb performances from his hand-picked cast right down the line, with standout work from Crowe and Spacey. Kim Basinger won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as a femme fatale who is central to the story and gets romantically involved with both Exley and White. Basinger is attractive in the role, but her Oscar win surprised me, though I will admit her chemistry with Crowe is off the charts here.
Solid support is also provided by Danny De Vito, David Straithern, Ron Rifkin, Graham Beckel, and especially James Cromwell as various players involved in the twists and turns this story takes.
Stunning art direction, cinematography, and costumes are icing on the cake in this textbook example of how to put a great crime drama on the screen. Remember: "Off the record, on the QT, and very hush hush."