Rating: 
Summary: L.A. Confidential--Confidentially, a great film!
Review: The best Russell Crowe I've seen. Same for Kin Bassinger. Spacey delivers. Just a GREAT film! Awesome. They hit the mark with the period--clothes, cars, feel, etc. on the QT and very hush-hush... The entire cast pulls out terrific performances. A breakout film and well worth all the hype! See it!
Rating:
Summary: Labyrinthine plot but the performances make it work
Review: To describe the plot of this film would be a futile endeavour. To try to pigeonhole the film into a class is likewise difficult - it's sort of like The Untouchables meets Chinatown. We follow the cases of three L.A. police detectives in the 50's, when the that police department was basically a big gang and justice was somewhat rough-and-ready. Their cases intertwine and twist around each other and through the lives of the supporting cast - the police chief, the D.A., a tabloid magazine editor, and a prostitution ring that specialises in hookers that look like actresses.Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey play two of the detectives, and James Cromwell plays the chief. All have been nominated for Oscars and all put in fantastic performances here. Guy Pearce is also great as the main character who is now, ironically, the least well-known actor in this ensemble picture. The three detectives are deeply flawed - Crowe's is bully, Pearce's is pompous and ambitious, and Spacey's is vain, strutting around the set of a TV show as a professional consultant and busting movie stars for marijuana use. However, you do come to sympathise and to cheer for these men as they try to piece together what is going on. Somehow, the screenwriters managed to condense James Elroy's novel(s) (unread by me) into something coherent and manageable for the 2.5 hour length. This is not an easy task, and I understand there is very little plot overlap between novels and film. However, the film on its own works, even though it sometimes seems like there are too many plotlines stuffed into the story. Therefore, I recommend the movie unreservedly. As an early entry into the DVD market, there are some pretty uninteresting extras, and the extras that are present are hidden under several layers of menus, and are hard to access for that reason. It's annoying to navigate and detracts from their enjoyment. However, the quality of the sound and video are fantastic, so worth getting on DVD nonetheless.
Rating: 
Summary: L.A. Confidential
Review: L.A. Confidential Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce look like young men in their early 20's in this film, although their roles specify them in their 30's. Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce claim to fame has to be this film. It has all you want in a police thriller. I give this film a flat out 5 stars. I recommend this film to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Who isn't corrupt?
Review: Almost every character in the is film is corrupt. Reasons vary, of course, but there are the usual suspects: money, power, ego, greed, sex, ambition, and fear. This film probably launched Russell Crowe's career in the role of always cynical and sometimes dangerously violent Detective Bud White who has his own concept of justice just as Detective Harry Callahan does. White's partner, Detective Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), is far more calculating and self-serving, willing to advance his career at whatever cost. Detective Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is their associate and to me, the most interesting character in the film. He maintains a high level of efficiency without ever placing himself in harm's way. He serves as technical advisor to a television series and has a payola deal with Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito): let him know whenever a celebrity is about to be arrested so that Hudgeons can obtain an on-site photo exclusive for his tabloid, Hush Hush. Meanwhile, having fallen in love with Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger) who bears a striking resemblance to Veronica Lake, White learns about a unique prostitution ring whose other members also resemble other film stars. (One awkward scene in the movie suggests that Lana Turner was unaware of the ring.) Separately, White and Exley eventually penetrate more deeply and more dangerously the corruption in Hollywood during the 1950s, corruption which includes the L.A.P.D. And then.... This is a classic, in some respects "noir" police film, ably directed by Curtis Hanson. Some have compared it with The Big Sleep, Chinatown, and even Training Day but I think there are more differences than similarities between any them. Basinger received an Academy Award for best supporting actor and Hanson shared an Academy Away for best adapted screenplay (of James Ellroy's brilliant novel) with Brian Helgeland. Years from now, this film may have more historical than dramatic interest but, so far, it has held up well as first-rate entertainment for those such as I who enjoy this genre of film.
Rating:
Summary: Great mainstream film noir
Review: Proving to be much better than originally anticipated, L.A. Confidential was a hit with critics and managed to win Oscar's for Kim Basinger (Best Supporting Actress) and screenwriter Brian Helgeland. Based on a series of James Ellroy's novels which takes place in 1940's Hollywood; L.A. Confidential manages to be one of the best mainstream film noirs in recent memory, and thanks to the brilliant directing by Curtis Hanson and the memorable ensemble cast (Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, and Danny DeVito) helps make this film something truly special. The DVD itself is one of Warner Bros.' better DVD packages; containing multiple parts of behind the scenes material that is actually worth watching.
Rating:
Summary: Liked It
Review: L.A. Con fidentail is great movie. It deserved the Oscars it won. I have to admit I first saw the movie because I do like Kim Bassinger. She had me hooked from the first time I saw her in Batman. She is fantastic and so dang hot. This is a great tail of murder, mystery, and betrayl. Just watch the movie for the acting. Kevin Spacey and Russel Crowe are fantastic. They are easily two of the best in the business. Guy Pearce also has a great performance. He's so great he suprised me he was so bad in The Time Machine. You got to see L.A. Confidential. If you love murder, betryal and mystery then it's the perfect movie for you.
Rating:
Summary: Off The Record, on the Q.T.and Hush Hush! - Cinema Gem!
Review: L.A. Confidential has all the ingredients of a Modern Classic. The story of wide spread corruption in the LAPD of the late 1950s keeps the viewer spellbound through many twists and turns, delivering a big surprise ending, the total pay-off! Several (then) unknowns lead a stellar cast of actors, among them a pre-Gladiator Russel Crowe. Kim Basinger delivers the goods as the ganster-moll-going-straight Veronica Lake look-alike. This VHS version of the film contains a BONUS at the end. About 20 minutes of behind-the-scenes and commentaries by the director, screen-writers, actors add an impressive "finishing touch", tying up any loose ends. This is a rare treat of a movie! Well deserved Best Picture Oscar nominee. Basinger WON her Oscar for a fine performance. Those who like the old-time cop movies will LOVE this one!*****
Rating:
Summary: Great movie!
Review: LA Confidential is a great movie. Great acting, great story line, etc. If you want a really entertaining movie, this is it.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Chinatown? please
Review: Watched this one with mixed feelings, good thriller with a soundtrack that could pass for a 'time life sounds of the 50s' cd, just nothing like as good as it could have been. It would be impossible to be totally faithful to the novel, the resulting film would be 16 hours long and banned in most countries on the world, but really, there are few sub plots abandoned that could have fleshed out the film better than alot of the bloated phoney elements that made it. While the novel is savage the movie is just a style statement, a pastische, harking back to an era that never existed, all the ideal period clothing and hairdoes can't dismiss the feeling that this is pure fantasy. Its all so artificial and stagey, from the colours to the watered down language, check out the scene where Bud White first meets Kim Basinger (i hope the plastic surgeon who cut her to look like Veronica Lake didn't receive any payment for his work), she somehow manages to smack her lips and coo at the same time while talking to White, surrounded by unnaturally vibrant blues and reds on a street that just shouts 'movie set!!'. Whereas with Elroy you can believe that while it isn't the truth it is an alternative reality that could easily have been without a massive leap of imagination. LA Confidential the movie doesn't even come close to finding the core of Elroy's book. The Ed Exley character (Guy Pierce) in the novel starts out already ethically compromised, by the end he is well on the way to becoming what he is in White Jazz, a character whose only redeeming feature is that he isn't as evil as Dudley Smith... In the film he starts out a good cop and by the end he's an even better cop! The escaped black suspects in the film are fired upon by his partner in the raid and they return fire, in the novel he is alone and they are unarmed, he guns them down in cold blood. Is this LA confidential or LA the official story? I don't buy into that lazy generalisation that the literary sources for films are always better than the films themselves... great novels can make great and original films that have departed considerably from the literary source, and bad novels can make great films (as anyone who has tried to read kiss me deadly can tell you). Besides, why compare two artforms (hm, i think i have been)? My problem with LA Confidential is not that it has strayed from the book, but that it has done so little with it, turned it into a laboured, mechanical thriller with two dimensional characters that for the last 50 minutes seems to repeatedly lurch from revelation to climax (denoted by very loud music), policemen burst into empty rooms guns out and contrived plot devices abound (rollo tommasi anyone?).And i'm a bit sick of 'idiot flashbacks' in films, we see a charcater from earlier in the film on a slab in the mortuary and register the look of familiarity on our heroe's face (not to mention the use of our own memory) and we get a flashback just in case we're not paying attention (Gangs of New York is the titan of this irritating cinematic convention)! And in the end LA isn't that bad a town, there are a couple of gangsters (mostly dead or in jail) a bunch of out of town gangsters made to do Smith's work, three corrupt cops, two blackmailed politicians, a high class pimp and a tabloid journalist. Doesn't seem right to complain like some that it ends with a conventional shoot out, after all the novel does ends with 3 shoot outs. How else could you top off hundreds of furious pages stuffed with serial killers and gangster conspiracies except with a burst of violence?. As for it being one of the best film noirs ever made as is suggested by several people here (i'm not sure i would classify it as a film noir) i would suggest that either they hadn't seen enough film noirs or that if they had they didn't appreciate the artistry involved or the dark places they went, taboo breaking detail, their complexity and subversive qualities (even if this is overstated and exaggerated in readings of some of the more well known film noirs). I keep discovering great seemingly forgotten noirs, thanks alot of the time to David Thomson, the man is a constant source of information, the like of 'The Reckless Moment', 'Where The Sidewalk Ends', 'Angel Face' (and i notice they just released 'They made me a fugitive' on DVD!). Having said that there is an effort to show the underside of the hollywood dream (i refuse to say 'american dream', i'm just sick of reading about the darkside to that! Even if they are maybe one and the same thing). Even so LA Confidential is as safe as movie making gets, pretty compromised studio film making (this isn't a diatribe against hollywood, i enjoy their films much more than french tripe with some handsome young man with long dark hair defying the nazis/english/revolutionaries with depardieu in a supporting role.. or a modern british gangster film). After all this is a money making business, in all fairness i doubt Curtis Hanson and team could have brought anything darker to the screen than what they did for studio fears of making a loss, kudos for them bringing it to the screen at all. So why 4 stars? Well... i quite liked it, just don't believe the hype. Besides there are already 200 reviews on here that suggest its the bee's knees.... And on a positive note... So many characters from other Elroy novels are co-opted into this one and killed and Dudly Smith himelf is shot dead it seems unlikely that this team will attempt to bring any of the rest of the LA quartet to the screen. Criminal waste of Mickey Cohen (surely the gangster subplots could have remained without turning the film into a Scorcese sized monster?) and as good as James Cromwell is he's no Dudley Smith, as flawed a film as 'Dark Blue' is it offers us Brendan Gleeson as a Dudley Smith like figure, did noone consider him for the part of Captain Smith? He was pretty close to the character....
Rating:
Summary: Hush/Hush
Review: Simply put, this film can't earn less than 5 stars; it's a seamless piece of work that should really have run off with more awards than it got. The performances are universally excellent--and maybe the casting director has to take the credit, maybe not--so it's hard to pick a singular stand-out lead in the whole piece. And Kevin Spacey is generally so good, we kind of take it for granted here. Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce as virtual unknowns in a Hollywood picture convince you very early on that they belong in the film. Shot on location in Hollywood, with all the appropriate setpieces, hairstyles, mannerisms, this is a film that (minus the profanity and nudity) could have been released 40 years ago to similar acclaim. It won a well-deserved Academy award for its screenplay, but from top to bottom, this film is a perennial and should find its way into every DVD player until the end of time.
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