L.A. Confidential

Based on James Ellroy’s novel, L.A. Confidential follows 1950s cops Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) and Bud White (Russell Crowe) as they find attempt to unravel a far-reaching conspiracy involving mobsters and fellow police officers. Filmmaker Curtis Hanson, working from a script written with Brian Helgeland, delivers a slow-moving yet progressively enthralling drama that benefits from its raft of commanding, engrossing performances, as stars Pearce and Crowe turn in career-best work that’s echoed in the efforts of a seriously impressive periphery cast that includes Kim Basinger, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, and James Cromwell. It’s worth noting, too, that the complex, complicated narrative never becomes as impenetrable or impossible-to-follow as one might’ve feared, and it doesn’t hurt, certainly, that Hanson has packed the proceedings with a number of electrifying sequences and interludes – with, for example, the climactic shootout, which packs a heck of a visceral punch, ensuring that the movie concludes on a palpably captivating note. The end result is a predominantly stellar adaptation that only grows more and more compelling as it unfolds (and as the characters are developed), and it’s ultimately quite likely that L.A. Confidential remains a high-water-mark for those involved on both sides of the camera. (Crowe has rarely been this magnetic, to be sure.)

**** out of ****