My Life at the Movies 3.10.09: 1997 - L.A. Confidential

Posted by DC Perry on 03.10.2009

Some men get the world. Others get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona.

1997 gave with one hand and took with the other. I finally got to see Star Wars on the big screen, but it was full of George Lucas' "Greedo shot first, Jabba met Han in the hangar bay" nonsense. Good Will Hunting, As Good as it Gets, and The Fifth Element were brilliant and inventive. Titanic was overhyped and exhausting. Volcano was a completely unexpected piece of awesomeness. On the other hand, Batman and Robin.

But smack in the middle of this year of give and take is one movie that flashes back to the 1950s and gets it all completely right.



1997 at a Glance

US President: Bill Clinton
Median annual salary: $37,005
Gallon of gas: $1.23
Dozen eggs: $1.17
New house: $176,200
New car: $19,260
Movie ticket: $4.59
Boston Red Sox: 78-84, fourth place, American League East
Me: Buried under my senior English seminar paper. Occasionally surfacing for air.


We meet our three main characters on the night of the Bloody Christmas scandal.



Sergeant Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) is an honor-bound, up-and-coming officer, the son of a LAPD hero, who is giving an interview while serving as watch commander on a nice, slow night during the department Christmas party.



Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is the police consultant for Badge of Honor, a Dragnet stand-in that gives him access to celebrities and gives sleazeball tabloid writer Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito) access to him. Hudgeons gives Vincennes a tip and a pay off to make a photo-op celebrity drug bust, which is sending Hush-Hush's circulation through the roof. Vincennes offers Exley the watch commander's usual take from Hudgeons, which Exley refuses.



Officer Bud White (Russell Crowe) is a thick-necked white knight who makes it a point to rough up and threaten men who abuse women. He and his partner, Dick Stensland (Graham Beckel), make the booze run for the Christmas party. At the liquor store, they run into a car with beautiful women, one of whom appears to have a broken nose, driven by ex-cop Buzz Meeks (Darrell Sandeen).



Two police officers were attacked, and when the group of Hispanic men who were accused of the crime are brought into the police station during the party, several officers, led by Stensland, head downstairs over Exley's protests to administer some indiscriminate justice. White refuses to testify against his fellow officers out of loyalty. Vincennes refuses as well, but out of self-preservation. Only Exley is willing to testify, in exchange for a promotion to Detective Lieutenant. Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) finds Exley's willingness to throw his fellow officers under the tires of his career disturbing, but he takes quite a shine to White's blind loyalty and decides to exploit it. Crime lord Mickey Cohen is in prison, and that leaves a power vacuum, one that Smith sends White to see is not filled by any of Cohen's lieutenant – violently, if necessary, which it often is.


I got three shotguns, taken from the suspects, that match the strike marks on the shells from the Nite Owl. What more do you want?

Meanwhile, Exley takes a call to investigate a murder at the Nite Owl coffee shop. He finds a pile of bodies, including Bloody Christmas scapegoat Dick Stensland. The chief suspects, strongly suggested by Captain Smith, are three black youths. While interrogating two of them, Exley learns they raped a Mexican girl the night of the murders, which sends white knight Bud off and running. He finds the girl, and in the next room he finds her captor in his underwear watching TV. White shoots the man, then makes both Captain Smith and George Lucas proud by planting a gun on him and putting a bullet in the doorway. While the cops are away, the imprisoned suspects make a break for it, which leads Exley into a shootout. All three suspects are eliminated, case closed. Exley is a hero.


Oh, lookee here: the great jerkoff case of 1953.

Vincennes, back from his token Bloody Christmas suspension, is reassigned to Vice, and he notices more and more logos for a company called Fleur-de-Lis. He and White both come to separate conclusions that the company offers high-class prostitutes who have been surgically altered to look like movie stars, which explains the Rita Hayworth look-alike among the murder victims at the Nite Owl. White, Exley, and Vincennes all converge on the Nite Owl case as a piece of a much larger conspiracy. Vincennes takes his concerns to Smith, and gets a bullet in his chest for his troubles. After being called to the Victory Motel by Captain Smith to work over Sid Hudgeons, White finds photos of Lynne Bracken (Kim Basinger), a Victoria Lake look-alike he's developed feelings for, having sex with Exley.


You're the first man in five years who didn't tell me I look like Veronica Lake inside of a minute.

White races back to the station to confront Exley. He throws him around the file room while Exley tries to explain evidence of Captain Smith's many misdeeds, including running heroin, murdering Meeks and setting up Stensland, and trying to take over Cohen's organized crime syndicate. Finally, White gets his tough guy peanut butter in Exley's calculating chocolate, and they combine their evidence and wills to take down Smith. They have a calm, rational discussion with District Attorney Eillis Loew (Ron Rifkin) about issuing warrants and wiretaps for Smith and his accomplices.



Exley and White find Pierce Patchett (David Straitharn), filthy rich operator of Fleur de Lis, dead in his home, victim of a clumsy staged suicide. Hudgeons has no information, either, being also very dead. Both Exley and White are called to the Victory Motel, supposedly by each other, and find themselves in the middle of a set up. White produces a small arsenal, and the two men barricade themselves in a room and shoot it out with Smith's men, Resident Evil style. After losing his whole hit squad, Captain Smith appeals to Exley, assuming he'll play politics. Exley thinks it over, then puts a shotgun shell in Smith's back.


Our justice must be swift and merciless.

L.A. Confidential is a beautiful piece of noir, using the seedy underbelly of self-righteous 1950s Los Angeles to show how easily decent men and women can be destroyed by external pressure. Smith is corrupt through and through, yet passes judgment on his collaborators to sweep them under the rug. Vincennes has long since forgotten why he became a cop, buying into his own celebrity. Everyone has dirt on everyone else, but White and Exley can't be bought. White begins as an unquestioning thug; Exley as an unblinking idealist. Slowly, subtly, both men evolve and learn, until they naturally recognize each other as the only trustworthy ally in unraveling the knotted corruption in the LAPD. Hands down, this is the best movie of 1997, and possibly of the entire decade.