Rating: 
Summary: The Best Movie of the 90's
Review: This should have won best picture over Titanic in 1998. Titanic is an excellent film but this film is much more smart and enjoyable and it is unique. It has good acting from all roles and the people they picked for the parts were right on. It also has a good soundtract that's kind of fun to listen to. The story involves around a murder where nothing is as it seems to be. It tells you that all cops are not good. That gives you a good lesson on cops being the boss of everything. Well there are some bad cops out there too and it really tells you that in the best way. L.A. Confidential is one of my top 3 favorite films and I would recommend it to everyone!
Rating:
Summary: Rolo Tamasey
Review: No matter what you are looking for in a movie chances are you'll find it LA Confidential. Simply speaking, the story centres on three police officers that are attempting to fight corruption, no only the place they live, but in there own souls. The film is funny, atmospheric, consistently surprising and has more heart in its sub-plots than other films have in their main story.One of the best things about the film is that you can watch anyone of the main characters and be treated to a story in itself. Personally speaking I enjoyed Russell Crowe's character, Budd White, the most. Guy Pearce's calculated manipulator and Kevin Spacey's self styled showman are also compelling to watch. The introduction of Rolo Tamasey was funny, innocent and clever. Kim Basinger's Oscar winning is also worthy of note. Her performance adds a sense of glamour to the film while also suggesting a real person underneath. Her performance invokes memories of Lauren Bacall and other great film-noir actresses. Though others will disagree I felt she deserved the Oscar. If you want to see the best film-noir since Chinatown or just want to see a decent film with some friends chances are LA Confidential will deliver.
Rating:
Summary: Film noir at its best
Review: L.A. Confidential is the movie that should have won Best Picture for 1998 over Titanic. Titanic is good, but this movie is easily superior, with the intelligence and depth to be great not just once, but after repeated viewings. I have watched this movie four times since it first came out and have always been totally wowed over by it. The depiction of the dark side of 1950s Los Angeles is vivid, the characters are multidimensional, the story complex but not confusing. Despite the way this movie is marketed, the two principal actors are not Kevin Spacey and Kim Basinger, but relative newcomers Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce who have both gone on to do other great films. (Ironically, Titanic star Leo DiCaprio - the two movies are linked to me- despite his elevated prominence after that movie, has had his career come to almost a dead halt). A way to measure the difference between a good movie and a great movie is what you are thinking after watching it. Do you think, "It was good, but it had this flaw or that flaw" or "It was good, and I especially liked how it did this or that"? In other words, after viewing it, do you start catching flaws or catching subtleties? L.A. Confidential fits into this latter category, a movie in which you can always find new and great things, and if you enjoy crime movies at all, this has to be on your viewing list.
Rating:
Summary: terrific modern film noir with lots of dvd extras
Review: I saw this film on a holiday weekend when it first came out. We were a group of five relatives and everyone had different tastes in film. We finally decided to try this movie without much hope of anyone being too happy, but instead every single person loved it. It is a thriller and a romance and a tale of good versus evil. Set in 1950s Los Angeles and based to a small degree on actual events, this tale of corruption in Hollywood and the LAPD, with 80 speaking parts and 45 locations, deservedly won many awards. The cast is fantastic -- amazing that two young Australian actors held their own against veterans James Cromwell, Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito -- but Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe made their big American splash with this film; Kim Basinger does her best work here, and the supporting cast is flawless. Director Curtis Hanson preserves some of the elements of the traditional film noir, like voiceover, plot twists and hidden motives, while updating others, such as the use of more natural lighting and a more character-driven story. DVD extras are plentiful and fun. The soundtrack is in English or French, the subtitles in English, French or Spanish; there is also a music only soundtrack. Extra features include: cast and crew credits; text and pictures covering the characters of Dragnet and Bloody Christmas, 1951 -- an event similar to that in the film; prices for various items in 1953; awards the film won; three television ads and a film trailer; a fun interactive map of 1950s LA; the screen tests of Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe; a 19-minute featurette, "Off the Record", with cast and crew interviews; and the 18-photos used by Curtis Hanson to visualize the project and to pitch the film to the producer and actors. This is a terrific film and the many DVD extras make this edition even more attractive. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Incredibly involving and mysterious modern film noir
Review: I admit, I have not yet read the book by James Ellroy, but I am planning on it. I couldn't resist. Anyway, all I really can say about this film can be summed up in one word: incredible. The writing is expert, the colors are gorgeous, the story spellbinding and the cast! Just look at the cast list! You've got nothing short of brilliant performances from Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and James Cromwell! I'd have to say that this is one of the best noir films I have ever seen, right up there with 'Chinatown'. The film centers on the brutal killing of six innocent people at a resturant called 'The Nite Owl'. There are three cops involved in the investigation in one way or another, and each is troubled in their own way. First there's Detective Lieutenant Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), who's forever been in his father's shadow although he is tainted by the fact that he only seems to care about his career. There's Wendall 'Bud' White (Russell Crowe), who witnessed the brutal killing of his mother by his drunken father, and can best be described as a bomb threatening to explode. Finally there's Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a guy who gladly sets up movie stars and then arrests them for fame on the cover of the 'Hush Hush' magazine. All see themselves as rivals for one reason or another, but for the case they're taking on now, they must unite. The movie also features James Cromwell as a head cop who might not be what he seems, Danny DeVito as the snivelling writer of 'Hush, Hush' and Kim Basinger playing a Veronica Lake look alike hooker. All of them never cease to surprise you. There's everything in this film and everything in this film is enjoyable. Every time I watch it, I discover something new or find something new I enjoy about it. It's one of those movies that grabs you and doesn't let go, and it does this with relative restraint. You don't even know it's happening. It's incredibly involving. The film does feature some violence, but it's nothing that cannot be handled. Overall, I can say with confidence that 'L.A. Confidential' is one of the best films made in the 1990's and definately one of the best modern film noir.
Rating: 
Summary: Thrillers generally dissapoint me
Review: Probably the best thriller of all, well performed with quite an interesting screenplay (although slightly unoriginal) L.A. Confidential is, however, bound in a cathegory where there are no good movies PERIOD. Thrillers are all unrealistic and clearly serving a propaganda agenda. What are their subliminal messages for which they have been continuously sustained: streets are bad and a democratic judicial system could no longer deal with these exceptional circumstances. Let's see for example the HIGHLY RECURRENT story of a policement who already knows who's the criminal but the over-democratical system will help him go away and avoid prosecution. Instead, we are made to believe illegal practices (such as beating the suspect or sleeping with it, if she's a female, which keep in mind it's a form of bribery and is severely punished) are better and more efficient. Instead we have the image of an all-knowing bully who takes "procedures" under his own hands. What these movies avoid is that in real life, you don't know who's the criminal and only prosecution will conclude whether the suspect is guilty or not. Policemen are no heroes, as the IRS and any other democratic institution in our country. The only reason they are payed for is to protect law abiding citizens from getting harmed. Anything that goes over these clearly defined attributions is utterly illegal, dangerous and un-democratic. The only foreseable purpose for these productions is to instill the prejudice that governing under a state of emergency (where police is militarized and politicized, thus serving no longer the citizen) would better solve the exceptional problems this country has to deal today (Arab terrorism, child crimes, bad streets and so on)...
Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie
Review: Here's guessing you'll never see Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pierce, Danny DeVito and Kim Bassinger in the same movie ever again. It would cost way too much. LA Confidential is conisistantly provocative and entertaining, a mix Hollywood almost never gets right. The acting is tip-top, and the plot is as well. Also, this is a mivie you get more out of the more times you see it, so you might as well buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Good Movie
Review: That's not a knock. Well, not much of one, anyway. Curtis Hanson was handed a near-impossible task: translate the best crime novel in a generation - one that requires a six or seven-hour running time to render faithfully - into a two-hour film. Give him credit for doing a good job of it, but let's not get so dewy-eyed that we ignore what was lost here: not just vital subplots but depth, layering, richness of detail. Gone are not only the Inez Soto/Dieterling-cum-Disney angle (and the piercing social commentary threaded into this sub-narrative) but the entire background/motivating force to the Ed Exley character, now reduced to a by-the-book, son-of-a-dead-patrolman tightass. Further, the concluding half-hour piles the climaxes together, one after another, straining and finally shredding credulity. The decision-making involved (likely forced down Hansen, Ellroy and screenwriter Helgeland's throats by the moneymen holding the pursestrings to the entire project) has also robbed us of any chance of seeing the entire LA Quartet brought to the screen, at least in any recognizable form, now that the Dudley Smith cat's out of the bag & dispensed with. So, then...what's on the PLUS side of the ledger here? Pacing and performances. While the characters of Bud White, Ed Exley & Jack Vincennes have been pre-softened for your viewing convenience, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce & Kevin Spacey pour everything they have into their roles, and...for the duration of the film...you believe in these characters. Crowe may be the current flavor-of-the-month, but DAMN he's good, smoldering like the burning tip of a Chesterfield. Spacey works vocal inflections and raised eyebrows like a virtuoso musician (he patterned his interpretation after Hanson's suggestion of Dean Martin as the ideal Vincennes, were this film actually made in '53) and Pearce, in the most thankless of the three roles, overcomes both the scenario's short-shrifting of the character's motivations and his own too-youthful appearance, managing to turn both to his advantage. The female lead, Ms Basinger, while overpraised, does fine, heartfelt work; and Danny DeVito is dependably Danny DeVito. All the secondary roles are both beautifully-cast and expertly-played as well, which helps the production immeasurably. James Cromwell is physically wrong for Dudley Smith, yet makes the role his own, emanating a bottomless pool of menace; Tomas Arana makes a wonderfully slimy Bruening, and David Straithairn and John Mahan both seem plucked from the 40s - they are uncanny physical matches to both their characters and the era being evoked. And Curtis Hansen keeps the action hurtling forward, a series of snowballs rolling downhill, picking up speed & force as they coalesce into one single storyline. Anyone not familiar with the novel is going to have damned little to complain about, and even Ellroy fans will grudgingly admit that the film being as good as it is constitutes a minor miracle. Still, those viewers who know only the film should make tracks to Ellroy's novel. Their pleasure will only be intensified by that small sting of regret at What Might Have Been.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best films of the 1990s
Review: L.A. CONFIDENTIAL is a briliantly made film. Director Curtis Hanson took a wonderful novel and made it into an even better film. With the casting of an unknown Russell Crowe alongside the likes of James Cromwell and Kevin Spacey, Hanson cemented the film's place as a classic. Buy this masterpiece today! In 1950s Los Angeles, all is not as perfect as one might lead you to believe. There is a wave of violent crimes after a crime boss's arrest. Now, it is up to three officers to try and find out who is behind the horrid crimes. Their journey through a world of glamour, glitz, and utmost corruption. This journey makes for a wonderful film. If you do not enjoy crime dramas, a bit of profanity, or even Russell Crowe you will not like L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. Younger viewers may not be suited for the sometimes graphic images of crime. However, anyone who wishes to see a dark, funny, and masterful film should buy the film version of James Ellroy's L.A. CONFIDENTIAL today!
Rating:
Summary: Great performances, great directing, just plain great movie
Review: "LA Confidential" can confidently be called the mother of all film noirs; Lord help whoever tries to top this one. Set in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, "Confidential" deals with an incredible case of police corruption which is unearthed little by little as the dead bodies pile up. There are so many terrific performances in this movie (Kevin Spacey as the jaded vice cop, Russell Crowe as the Rambo wannabe, Guy Pearce as the straight-arrow lieutenant, James Cromwell as the venal police captain, and Kim Basinger as the call girl with a heart) that they would have had to hand out Oscars by the bucketful to do justice to everyone who deserved one. Of the minor characters, my favorite was Danny DeVito as the sleazeball sleaze magazine editor, whose talent for telling all finally does him in. There are a few real-life characters being played in this film; who in the baby-boomer set doesn't remember Johnny Stompanato, the small-time thug and sometime paramour of Lana Turner who was murdered by her daughter, which was ultimately dismissed as justifiable homicide? The main characters in the film are so compelling as to be totally mesmerizing. Lieutenant Exley, played by Guy Pearce, tries earnestly to steer a straight path through the miasma of corruption running rampant in his precinct, even as he boosts his own career through rampant self-promotion. Kevin Spacey is great as Seargeant Jack Vincennes, who is mired so deep in the vice squad that he is becoming as jaded and venal as the human slimeballs he mixes with, until he stumbles onto the key players of the corruption within the LAPD, and James Cromwell practically oozes evil as the loathesome Captain Dudley Smith. But the film really belongs to Russell Crowe and his portrayal of Officer Bud White; with his take-no-prisoners mentality, he seems to represent everything that is wrong with the LAPD (vicious, corrupt, violent, insensitive); but with White there is a limit, and when he stumbles into the rot in his department, his better instincts take over. There is blood and gore galore in this film but the story is so well told that none of the violence is gratuitous. It's a story of people doing a mean, dirty job with honor or dishonor. This movie defines film noir as it has never been defined before, and it ranks as one of the greatest films of the past decade. The acting, directing and production can only be described in superlatives. It's a winner on all counts.
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