Cops and being Robbed by a sinking ship

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2005)

Startling.
L.A. Confindential, one of the best crime dramas ever made, loses out to Titanic in the Oscars. I still shake my head at the thought.
Okay, Titanic is technically brilliant and had cutting edge(at the time)special effects, but for all it's box office return, it's not the film that should have won the Oscars it did.
Confidential(as it will be henceforth known)is a real piece of craftsmanship. Curtis Hanson's unflinching,non-sympathetic direction just shows these characters for what they all are, flawed. He uses the L.A. landscape to enhance his story. The pace and rhythm to the movie is just like Kevin Spacey's suits, cool, and the music of the period (which I believe he chose himself) are spot on.
Then there's the actors.I've said(on these boards) that this is Russell Crowe's best movie, and I stand by it.A man at odds with what he thinks is morally right and wrong who grows before your eyes into what he should be doing instead of what he's told to do is riveting. Guy Pearce is excellent as the man who's actions have motives in progressing his profession and the man who will ultimately solve what is really going on. Kevin Spacey is coolness itself, but again wrangles with his conscience over his profession and his glamorous image. James Cromwell is brooding, his reputation on the line as the investigation tightens around his illegal activities.
A throughly brilliant film, one for which I again cannot believe lost out to a sinking ship of a film.
10/10