L.A. Confidential Film Review

After watching L.A. Confidential we decided to write a classic film review, before we started to write our film reviews in a group we looked at key elements and other film reviews, this gave us a chance to get idea and maybe encorporate them into our film reviews. I found this had to start with but found looking at other film reviews for inspiration very useful. I learnt throughout that you really need to link with your reader and a bit of cheesy lines don't go a miss, a film review needs to be easy to read and clear.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

From start to dramatic finish L.A. Confidential’s plot zig zags like knife slashes, the movie brings the thrill of corruption crackingly to life. If you haven’t yet seen L.A. confidential, stop everything your doing and watch it now! The beauty of this film is the un-known, I want you to see this film as I did with no expectations and no idea who’s the hero, who’s the villain, or even what the stakes are. L.A. Confidential isn’t just a great movie; its an amazing deconstruction of the noir ‘genre’ (if you will permit to call it a genre). L.A. Confidential is a film noir. L.A. Confidential is set in 1950’s Hollywood where it was still seen as America’s capital of sophistication, glitter and glamour but is there “trouble in paradise”?

Based on the best-selling novel by James Ellroy, this award winning crime drama explores both the dark side of the Los Angeles police force and Southern California’s criminal underbelly in the early 50’s.

As far as noir stories go, L.A. Confidential is nothing new and conforms perfectly to the ‘genre’. The investigation of a brutal murder involving a dead cop and four other people at a diner eventually spirals out of control as lies, cover-ups and deceit are revealed. Characters twist and turn in the wind so much that you are not sure who to trust. Well, except out the three cop anti-heros that is: Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Edmund Exely (Guy Pearce). These three chase down the clues that lead to the major city-wide cover-up and peal back the dirty secrets of a city trying to look clean. Insert a blonde femme fatale in the form of Lynne Bracken (Basinger), and you have yourself the perfect makings of a neo noir.

Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) performs brilliantly throughout the film and we really see his character develop and watch him become a strong and heroic policeman from the timid and dismissive policeman that he was at the start. Bud White (Russell Crowe) plays a strong character whose main intentions for being in the police are to sniff out women beaters, even going as far as to kill a Negro for abusing a woman but with a raging temper will he be able to stop himself when he finds out what his new love has been up too? Russell plays Bud amazingly and the film would not have been right without him.

Typical of neo noir the whole film is in colour which works really well and allows the lighting to take a lot of effect. Throughout the film we are treated to voice over of the journalist for magazine Hush-Hush Sid Hudgens (Danny Devito) bribing the police for killer stories (literally), this is very common with both film noir and neo noir movies and also informs the audience of a lot of information in a short amount of time. Another typical neo and film noir feature that is present throughout is dark lighting with single source lighting, this is present up until the end where all the secrets are revealed and happiness is restored.

Just like a gripping book that you can’t put down, once you have started watching L.A. Confidential you must watch it to the end so that everything becomes clear. Director Curtis Hanson has most definitely managed to tick all the boxes with his exemplary film. There is a reason why L.A. Confidential won an Oscar, and that is because it is absolutely amazing.