POLICE STORY

by John M. Floyd

Now and then I re-watch—or discover, if I’m fortunate—a movie that is both entertaining to me as a crime-fiction fan and instructive to me as a crime-fiction writer. I’ve done columns on a few of them over the past year or so. One was Double Indemnity, another was Blood Simple.

A movie that I saw last week for the third time—L.A. Confidential (1997)—reminds me of those two, but is different in many ways. For one thing, it’s categorized as film noir, but rather than having the action take place almost entirely after dark, or in rooms so dimly lit it might as well be, this movie was blazing with color. Except for a few scenes, one of which is a final nighttime shootout at an abandoned motel, LAC spends most of its time in the sunlit and not-yet-congested grandeur of Southern California in the early 1950s.

A great story, period

Be aware, it wasn’t filmed in the fifties; it was set in the fifties. And the fact that it’s a period piece is one of the reasons it nearly didn’t get made at all. It’s my understanding that Hollywood studios in the 1990s were reluctant to shoot a movie set in the forties or fifties, for three reasons: they’d been done too often, they were expensive, and they were rarely successful. But somehow the project sold, and when you watch it you will believe you’ve been transported to the Los Angeles of sixty years ago.

I did notice, though, that the period setting wasn’t overdone (as it sometimes is). It supplied the necessary mood and authenticity, but—thanks to the director, who said he made a conscious effort in this area—the surroundings were never allowed to intrude and take away from the really important things: plot, characters, and emotions.

Confidential observations

Another plus was that the director and producers chose relatively unknown actors for the two lead roles. In truth, this was probably done more for budget reasons than anything else, but director Curtis Hanson has said that casting Australian newcomers Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce kept audiences from forming opinions about the characters too early in the movie. Hanson said he wanted viewers to instead “discover” them as if they were reading the novel. That was a wise approach. In the theatre, viewers didn’t know at first whether to like these people or not, and were also unsure whether they would live or die or turn out good or bad. I can’t tell you much more about LAPD cops Bud White (Crowe) and Ed Exley (Pearce) without giving away plot secrets, but the two of them were the driving force behind the movie.

Some of the rest of the cast were better known at that time—Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, James Cromwell—but even so, there was no superstar in the group, and that probably helped as well. Audiences could allow themselves to be swept along in the story without feeling that the whole thing might be no more than a vehicle for established stars. If you see a lot of movies I think you know what I mean. The same thing happened—and worked—with Reservoir Dogs, Body Heat, Miller’s Crossing, The Usual Suspects, and others.

Character building

The plot is probably too complicated to describe here, but I assure you this was a story that kept me interested throughout, and the characters were well-written and well-played. The smooth and sleazy tabloid editor; the millionaire “manager” of a group of celebrity-lookalike hookers; the corrupt policemen who have blurred the line between right and wrong so often they don’t remember where it is anymore; the slick detective who rubs shoulders with the rich and famous and has—as a result—lost his soul; the smart, ambitious straight-arrow who comes to understand that justice doesn’t always go by the book; the reckless, tough-as-nails cop with a soft heart and a secret in his past; and the glamorous woman who’s used by almost all of them, and yet is probably the only person in the movie who truly understands who she is and what she believes in. And every single character (at least those who survived until the final credits) learned life-changing lessons from the events he or she experienced.

A quick word about the movie version as compared to the book: less than half of James Ellroy’s novel wound up making it to the screen. But what’s there, and what was added to it, is outstanding. LAC was nominated for nine Oscars (including Best Picture) and won two, one of which was for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Memorable moments

As with almost all movies that I really like, a few quotes and at least one scene stand out in my mind. The line I most remember was spoken by police captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell), while watching Officer White roar off in a blind rage after finding out he’d been betrayed by the woman he loves and Lieutenant Exley. The captain thoughtfully said to a colleague: “I wouldn’t trade places with Edmund Exley right now for all the whiskey in Ireland.” And the scene that I recall most is one with Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) and Captain Smith in Smith’s kitchen, about two-thirds of the way through the film. If you’ve seen the movie you’ll remember that scene, and if you haven’t seen it I promise you’ll remember it after you do. It was one of those stunning surprises that turns everything upside down, like Janet Leigh’s shower in Psycho.

To Pearce a Crowe?

I love to talk about movies, and I learned long ago never to assure anyone that he or she will enjoy or hate any particular film. But I’ll stick my neck out at least this far: if you’re reading this blog, you probably like mystery/crime fiction, and if you like mystery/crime fiction you’ll almost certainly like L.A. Confidential. It might not kill any mockingbirds or silence any lambs (those would be hard to top), but I think you’ll find it worthwhile.

As for me, I might just watch it a fourth time.