| L.A. Confidential | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Curtis Hanson |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | L.A. Confidential byJames Ellroy |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Dante Spinotti |
| Edited by | Peter Honess |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 138 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $35 million[1] |
| Box office | $126.2 million[2] |
L.A. Confidential is a 1997 Americanneo-noircrime thriller film directed, produced, and co-written byCurtis Hanson. The screenplay by Hanson andBrian Helgeland is based onJames Ellroy's1990 novel, the third book in hisL.A. Quartet series. The film tells the story of a group ofLAPD officers in 1953, and the intersection of police corruption andHollywood celebrity. The title refers to the 1950s scandal magazineConfidential, portrayed in the film asHush-Hush.
At the time, actorsGuy Pearce andRussell Crowe were relatively unknown in North America. One of the film's backers, Peter Dennett, was worried about the lack of established stars in the lead roles, but supported Hanson's casting decisions, and Hanson had the confidence to also recruitKevin Spacey,Kim Basinger, andDanny DeVito.
L.A. Confidential premiered at theCannes Film Festival on May 14, 1997, and was released byWarner Bros. on September 19, 1997. The film was a critical and commercial success. It grossed $126.2 million against a $35 million budget and received critical acclaim for the acting, writing, directing, editing, andJerry Goldsmith's musical score.[3][4] It was nominated for nineAcademy Awards, includingBest Picture, winning two:Best Supporting Actress (Basinger) andBest Adapted Screenplay;Titanic won in every other category for whichL.A. Confidential was nominated. In 2015, theLibrary of Congress selectedL.A. Confidential for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[5][6][7]
In 1953, theLos Angeles Police Department (LAPD) aims to improve its public image following decades of corruption. Career-focused sergeant Edmund Exley lives in the shadow of his legendary detective father, whose murderer was never identified; Exley names the suspect "Rollo Tomasi,” representing any criminal who escapes justice. Fame-seeking narcotics sergeant Jack Vincennes collaborates withtabloid journalist Sid Hudgens to perform high-profile celebrity arrests, and volatile officer Wendell White uses violence to interrogate and intimidate suspects, particularly women-abusers, because his father murdered his mother.
On Christmas Eve, White encounters high-class prostitutes Lynn Bracken and Susan Lefferts, and former officer Leland Meeks. They work for Pierce Patchett, a millionaire businessman operatingFleur-de-Lis, a prostitution ring supplying women surgically altered to resemble film stars. White begins a relationship with Bracken. Following the "Bloody Christmas" scandal—involving drunken officers beating inmates—Exley is promoted to detective lieutenant for advising his superiors to save the department's reputation by only dismissing securely pensioned officers. Exley coerces Vincennes to testify, while White refuses to comply and is suspended. White's partner Dick Stensland is fired for his involvement, making other officers hostile towards Exley. Following the imprisonment of powerful gangsterMickey Cohen, police captain Dudley Smith recruits White to frighten off criminals attempting to take Cohen's place. A spate of murders targeting Cohen's underlings leads to the disappearance of 25 lb (11 kg) of his heroin.
Exley investigates a massacre at the Nite Owl coffee house, with Stensland and Lefferts among the victims. Three felons are arrested for the crime, and interrogation reveals the men have been raping a captive woman. White rushes to free the woman and executes her captor, planting evidence to suggest he acted in self-defense. The felons escape the station and are killed by Exley in the ensuing shootout, closing the case and earning him a medal for bravery. However, unable to ignore inconsistencies in the case, Exley and White continue the investigation independently. White interviews Lefferts's mother and discovers Meeks's body beneath her house. He interrogates Cohen's ex-bodyguard,Johnny Stompanato, who reveals Meeks was trying to sell the stolen heroin.
Hudgens and Vincennes orchestrate a homosexual tryst between struggling actor Matt Reynolds and district attorney Ellis Loew to create blackmail photos. However, after Reynolds is found murdered, a guilt-ridden Vincennes joins Exley's investigation. Vincennes learns that Meeks and Stensland formerly worked together under Smith, and dropped an investigation into Patchett and Hudgens blackmailing prominent businessmen with photos of their illicit trysts. He then confronts Smith, who shoots him dead. With his last breath, Vincennes says "Rollo Tomasi."
Exley becomes suspicious when Smith asks him about "Rollo Tomasi", a name Exley disclosed only to Vincennes. Smith arranges for White to find photos taken by Hudgens of Bracken having sex with Exley. Enraged, White confronts and fights Exley until they realize that their investigations implicate Smith. They deduce that Stensland killed Meeks for the heroin, and Smith orchestrated the Nite Owl massacre to kill Stensland and framed the felons. Exley and White interrogate Loew, discovering Smith and Patchett are taking over Cohen's empire and used the photos of him with Reynolds to coerce his cooperation. Exley and White later find Hudgens and Patchett murdered.
Smith lures Exley and White into a remote ambush. Though badly wounded, the pair kill Smith's men. Smith offers to mislead the approaching police and further promote Exley, but Exley executes him to prevent him avoiding punishment. Despite Exley's evidence, LAPD officials decide to protect the department's image by claiming Smith died a hero; Exley agrees to cooperate as a second "hero" for further accolades. Outsidecity hall, Exley says goodbye to Bracken and White before they leave forArizona.
Curtis Hanson had read half a dozen ofJames Ellroy's books beforeL.A. Confidential and was drawn to its characters, not the plot. He said, "What hooked me on them was that, as I met them, one after the other, I didn't like them—but as I continued reading, I started to care about them."[8] Ellroy's novel also made Hanson think about Los Angeles and provided him with an opportunity to "set a movie at a point in time when the whole dream of Los Angeles, from that apparently golden era of the '20s and '30s, was being bulldozed."[8]
ScreenwriterBrian Helgeland was originally signed toWarner Bros. to write a Viking film with directorUli Edel and then worked on an unproduced modern-dayKing Arthur story. Helgeland was a longtime fan of Ellroy's novels. When he heard that Warner Bros. had acquired the rights toL.A. Confidential in 1990, he lobbied to script the film,[8] but the studio was then talking only to well-known screenwriters. When he finally got a meeting, it was canceled two days before it was to occur.[8]
Helgeland found that Hanson had been hired to direct and met with him while the filmmaker was makingThe River Wild. They found that they not only shared a love for Ellroy's fiction but also agreed on how to adaptConfidential into a film. According to Helgeland, they had to "remove every scene from the book that didn't have the three main cops in it, and then to work from those scenes out."[8] According to Hanson, he "wanted the audience to be challenged but at the same time I didn't want them to get lost."[9] They worked on the script together for two years, with Hanson turning down jobs and Helgeland writing seven drafts for free.[8]
The two men also got Ellroy's approval. He had seen Hanson's filmsThe Bedroom Window andBad Influence, and found him "a competent and interesting storyteller", but was not convinced that his book would be made into a film until he talked to the eventual director.[8] He later said, "They preserved the basic integrity of the book and its main theme. Brian and Curtis took a work of fiction that had eight plotlines, reduced those to three, and retained the dramatic force of three men working out their destiny."[8]
Warner Bros. executiveBill Gerber showed the script to Michael Nathanson, CEO ofNew Regency Productions, which had a deal with the studio. Nathanson loved it, but they had to get the approval of New Regency's owner,Arnon Milchan. Hanson prepared a presentation that consisted of 15 vintage postcards and pictures of Los Angeles mounted on posterboards, and made his pitch to Milchan. The pictures consisted of orange groves, beaches, tract homes in theSan Fernando Valley, and the opening of theHollywood Freeway to symbolize the image of prosperity sold to the public.[8]
In the pitch, Hanson showed the darker side of Ellroy's novel by presenting the cover of scandal ragConfidential and the famous shot ofRobert Mitchum coming out of jail after hismarijuana bust. He also had photographs of jazz musiciansZoot Sims,Gerry Mulligan, andChet Baker to represent the popular music of the time.[8] Hanson emphasized that the period detail would be in the background and the characters in the foreground.[10] Milchan was impressed with his presentation and agreed to finance it.
Hanson had seenRussell Crowe inRomper Stomper and found him "repulsive and scary, but captivating".[8] The actor had read Ellroy'sThe Black Dahlia but notL.A. Confidential. When he read the script, Crowe was drawn to Bud White's "self-righteous moral crusade".[11] Crowe fit the visual preconception of Bud. Hanson put the actor on tape doing a few scenes from the script and showed it to the film's producers, who agreed to cast him as Bud.[12]
Guy Pearce auditioned, and Hanson felt that he "was very much what I had in mind for Ed Exley."[8] The director purposely did not watch the actor inThe Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, afraid that it might influence his decision.[12] As he did with Crowe, Hanson taped Pearce and showed it to the producers, who agreed he should be cast as Ed. Pearce did not like Ed when he first read the screenplay and remarked, "I was pretty quick to judge him and dislike him for being so self-righteous ... But I liked how honest he became about himself. I knew I could grow to respect and understand him."[13]
Milchan was against casting "two Australians" in the American period piece (Pearce wryly noted in a later interview that while he and Crowe grew up in Australia, he was born in England to a New Zealand father, while theMāori Crowe is a New Zealander too). Crowe and Pearce were also relative unknowns in North America, and Milchan was equally worried about the lack of film stars in the lead roles.[8] But he supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approachKim Basinger,Danny DeVito andKevin Spacey. Hanson cast Crowe and Pearce because he wanted to "replicate my experience of the book. You don't like any of these characters at first, but the deeper you get into their story, the more you begin to sympathize with them. I didn't want actors audiences knew and already liked."[14]
A third Australian actor unknown to American audiences at the time,Simon Baker, later to star in the television seriesThe Mentalist, was cast in the smaller but noteworthy role of Matt Reynolds, a doomed young bisexual actor. He was billed as Simon Baker Denny in the film's credits.
Hanson felt that the character of Jack Vincennes was "a movie star among cops", and thought of Spacey, with his "movie-star charisma," casting him specifically against type.[12] The director was confident that the actor "could play the man behind that veneer, the man who also lost his soul," and when he gave him the script, he told him to think ofDean Martin while in the role.[12] Hanson cast Basinger because he felt that she "was the character to me. What beauty today could project the glamor of Hollywood's golden age?"[14]
To give his cast and crew points and counterpoints to capture Los Angeles in the 1950s, Hanson held a "mini-film festival", showing one film a week:The Bad and the Beautiful, because it epitomized the glamorous Hollywood look;In a Lonely Place, because it revealed the ugly underbelly of Hollywood glamor;Don Siegel'sThe Lineup andPrivate Hell 36, "for their lean and efficient style";[12] andKiss Me Deadly, because it was "so rooted in the futuristic '50s: the atomic age."[8][12] Hanson and the film's cinematographerDante Spinotti studiedRobert Frank's 1958 photographic bookThe Americans and felt that the influence of his work was in every aspect of the film's visuals. Spinotti wanted to compose the shots of the film as if he was using a still camera and suggested Hanson shoot the film in theSuper 35 widescreen format with spherical lenses, which in Spinotti's opinion conveyed the feel of a still photo.[15]
Before filming took place, Hanson brought Crowe and Pearce to Los Angeles for two months to immerse them in the city and the time period.[14] He also got them dialect coaches, showed them vintage police training films, and introduced them to real-life cops.[14] Pearce found the contemporary police force had changed too much to be useful for research and disliked the police officer he rode along with because Pearce felt he was racist.[16] He found the police films more valuable because "there was a real sort of stiffness, a woodenness about these people" that he felt Exley had as well.[14] For six weeks, Crowe, Pearce, Hanson and Helgeland conducted rehearsals, which consisted of their discussing each scene in the script.[17] As other actors were cast they would join in the rehearsals.[12]
Hanson did not want the film to be an exercise in nostalgia, and so had Spinotti shoot it like a contemporary film, and used more naturalistic lighting than in a classic film noir.[18] He told Spinotti and the film's production designerJeannine Oppewall to pay great attention to period detail, but to then "put it all in the background".[12]L.A. Confidential was shot at theLinda Vista Community Hospital in the Los Angeles area.[19][20] Several famous Hollywood landmarks appropriate to the 1950s were used, including theFormosa Cafe inWest Hollywood, the Frolic Room onHollywood Boulevard, and theCrossroads of the World, an outdoor shopping mall dressed as a movie theatre where the premiere ofWhen Worlds Collide takes place at the beginning of the film.[21]
Patchett's home is theLovell House, a famousInternational Style mansion designed byRichard Neutra. Bracken's house is at 501 Wilcox Avenue in the affluentHancock Park neighborhood, overlooking the Wilshire Country Club.[22] The house required a $75,000 renovation to transform it into the Spanish-style home described in the script.[21] HistoricCentral Los Angeles neighborhoods were used for the scenes in which the police hunt down the Nite Owl suspects, includingAngelino Heights,Lincoln Heights, andKoreatown.[21] The Victory Motel was one of the only purpose-built sets, constructed on a flat stretch of theInglewood Oil Field inCulver City.[21]
Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, but lost toJames Horner's score forTitanic.[23]
The film was screened at the1997 Cannes Film Festival.[24] According to Hanson, Warner Bros. did not want it shown at Cannes because they felt there was an "anti-studio bias ... So why go and come home a loser?"[12] But Hanson wanted to debut the film at a high-profile international venue. He and other producers bypassed the studio and sent a print directly to the festival's selection committee, which loved it.[18] Ellroy saw the film and said, "I understood in 40 minutes or so that it is a work of art on its own level. It was amazing to see the physical incarnation of the characters."[8]
L.A. Confidential grossed $64.6 million in the United States, and $61.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $126.2 million.[2]
The film was released on September 19, 1997, in 769 theaters, grossing $5.2 million in its opening weekend and finishing fourth behindIn & Out,The Game andWishmaster.[25] It made $4.4 million in its second weekend then expanded to 1,625 theaters and grossed $4.7 million in its third.[26]
Onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes,L.A. Confidential holds an approval rating of 99% and an average rating of 9/10, with 162 out of 163 reviews being positive. The site's critical consensus reads: "Taut pacing, brilliantly dense writing and Oscar-worthy acting combine to produce a smart, popcorn-friendly thrill ride."[3] The film later appeared third on the site's list of the "300 Best Movies of All Time", a synthesis of critic and user reviews.[27] OnMetacritic the film has a weighted average score of 90 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[4] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[28]
Film criticRoger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and described it as "seductive and beautiful, cynical and twisted, and one of the best films of the year."[29] He later included it as one of his "Great Movies" and described it as "film noir, and so it is, but it is more: Unusually for a crime film, it deals with the psychology of the characters ... It contains all the elements of police action, but in a sharply clipped, more economical style; the action exists not for itself but to provide an arena for the personalities".[30]
In her review forThe New York Times,Janet Maslin wrote, "Mr. Spacey is at his insinuating best, languid and debonair, in a much more offbeat performance than this film could have drawn from a more conventional star. And the two Australian actors, tightly wound Mr. Pearce and fiery, brawny Mr. Crowe, qualify as revelations."[31] Desson Howe's review forThe Washington Post praised the cast: "Pearce makes a wonderful prude who gets progressively tougher and more jaded. New Zealand-born Crowe has a unique and sexy toughness; imagineMickey Rourke without the attitude. Although she's playing a stock character, Basinger exudes a sort of chaste sultriness. Spacey is always enjoyable."[32]
In his review forThe Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote, "The big star is Los Angeles itself. LikeRoman Polanski's depiction of Los Angeles in the '30s inChinatown, the atmosphere and detailed production design are a rich gel where the strands of narrative form."[33]USA Today gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing, "It appears as if screenwriters Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson have pulled off a miracle in keeping multiple stories straight. Have they ever. Ellroy's novel has four extra layers of plot and three times as many characters ... the writers have trimmed unwieldy muscle, not just fat, and gotten away with it."[34]
In his review forNewsweek,David Ansen wrote, "L.A. Confidential asks the audience to raise its level a bit, too—you actually have to pay attention to follow the double-crossing intricacies of the plot. The reward for your work is dark and dirty fun."[35]Richard Schickel, in his review forTime, wrote, "It's a movie of shadows and half lights, the best approximation of the old black-and-white noir look anyone has yet managed on color stock. But it's no idle exercise in style. The film's look suggests how deep the tradition of police corruption runs."[36] Writing inTime Out New York,Andrew Johnston observed: "Large chunks of Ellroy's brilliant (and often hilarious) dialogue are preserved, and the actors clearly relish the meaty lines. Dante Spinotti's lush cinematography and Jeanne Oppewall's crisp, meticulous production design produce an eye-popping tableau of '50s glamour and sleaze."[37]
In his review forThe New York Observer,Andrew Sarris wrote, "Mr. Crowe strikes the deepest registers with the tortured character of Bud White, a part that has had less cut out of it from the book than either Mr. Spacey's or Mr. Pearce's ... but Mr. Crowe at moments reminded me ofJames Cagney's poignant performance inCharles Vidor'sLove Me or Leave Me (1955), and I can think of no higher praise."[38]Kenneth Turan, in his review forLos Angeles Times, wrote, "The only potential audience drawbackL.A. Confidential has is its reliance on unsettling bursts of violence, both bloody shootings and intense physical beatings that give the picture a palpable air of menace. Overriding that, finally, is the film's complete command of its material."[39] In his review forThe Independent, Ryan Gilbey wrote, "In fact, it's a very well made and intelligent picture, assembled with an attention to detail, both in plot and characterisation, that you might have feared was all but extinct in mainstream American cinema."[40][41] Richard Williams, in his review forThe Guardian, wrote, "L.A. Confidential gets just about everything right. The light, the architecture, the slang, the music ... a wonderful Lana Turner joke. A sense, above all, of damaged people arriving to make new lives and getting seduced by the scent of night-blooming jasmine, the perfume of corruption."[42]
Some authors have describedL.A. Confidential as aneo-noir film.[43][44]
TIME magazine rankedL.A. Confidential the best film of 1997.[45] TheNational Society of Film Critics also ranked it the year's best film and Curtis Hanson was voted Best Director.[46] TheNew York Film Critics Circle also votedL.A. Confidential the year's best film in addition to ranking Hanson best director, and his and Brian Helgeland's best screenplay.[47] TheLos Angeles Film Critics Association and theNational Board of Review also votedL.A. Confidential the year's best film. As a result, it is one of three films in history to sweep the "Big Four" critics' awards, alongsideSchindler's List (1993) andThe Social Network (2010).[46]
In 2006,Writers Guild of America West ranked its screenplay 60th in WGA’s list of 101 Greatest Screenplays.[48] In 2008, it was also voted the best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group ofLos Angeles Times writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list."[49] In 2009, theLondon Film Critics' Circle votedL.A. Confidential one of the best films of the past 30 years.[50] The February 2020 issue ofNew York Magazine listsL.A. Confidential as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars."[51]
AVHS and DVD were released on April 14, 1998, byWarner Home Video.[89] In addition to the film, the latter release included two featurettes, an interactive map of Los Angeles, a music-only track, a theatrical trailer, and three TV spots.[90]
The movie was released again as a two-disc Special Edition DVD andBlu-ray on September 23, 2008.[91] Both sets have the same bonus content. In addition to the features from the original DVD, there are four new featurettes, the 1999 pilot of the proposed television series starringKiefer Sutherland, and film commentary by writer (novel)James Ellroy, writer (screenplay)/co-producerBrian Helgeland, actorsKevin Spacey,Russell Crowe,Guy Pearce,James Cromwell,Kim Basinger,Danny DeVito andDavid Strathairn, production designerJeannine Oppewall, director of photographyDante Spinotti, costume designerRuth Myers and American film criticAndrew Sarris. Some sets included a six-song sampler from the film's soundtrack.[90]
On September 26, 2017,20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, the distributor and part-owner of New Regency, re-released the film on Blu-ray as part of its 20th anniversary with new cover artwork. The disc has the same technical specifications and bonus features as the previous Blu-ray.[92]
In October 2020,Brian Helgeland confirmed a sequel toL.A. Confidential had been in development before the death ofChadwick Boseman, who would have played a young cop working for L.A. MayorTom Bradley named James Muncie. Crowe and Pearce would have reprised their roles, and the film was to have been set in 1974.[93]
The planned sequel failed to attract interest from studios, with Ellroy and Helgeland revealing that executives fromNetflix fell asleep during their pitch.[94]
Works byJames Ellroy | |
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| Stand-alone |
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| Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy |
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| L.A. Quartet |
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| Underworld USA Trilogy |
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| The L.A. Quintet |
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| Fred Otash series |
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| Short story collections |
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| Non-fiction |
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| Original screenplays |
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| Film adaptations |
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| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
