The classic 1997 crime thriller L.A. Confidential was just added to Hulu, but good luck recommending it to a friend in a coherent fashion. The movie was a critical and commercial hit in its time and was an awards-season darling, but it is also famously dense and evocative in ways that are hard to put into words. It’s a neo-noir film based on a novel by James Ellroy published in 1990, though it was the third book in a series of four, and the other three were not adapted. It’s a great time to catch up on this piece of modern film history, or to revisit it if it’s been a while. However, if you’re going to encourage others to check it out, too, you may struggle to tell them what they’re in for.
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L.A. Confidential is about a group of LAPD officers who find themselves caught up in the high stakes scandals of their city. Kevin Spacey plays Detective “Hollywood Jack” Vincennes, Guy Pearce plays Detective “Shotgun Ed” Exley, Russell Crowe plays Officer Wendell “Bud” White, and James Cromwell plays Captain Dudley Smith. Their work brings them into contact with the other stars, including Kim Basinger as Lynn Bracken and Danny DeVito as Sid Hudgens.
The story is set in 1953, with the LAPD working to improve its public image after years of previous corruption were uncovered. They are entangled in an increasingly disturbing web of crimes and corrupt responses to those crimes — many related to the veneer of respectability that hangs over the entertainment industry. Each of the stories seem like independent vignettes at first, though they do crossover and become relevant to one another.
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In that sense, the movie is easy to compare to Pulp Fiction, another anthology-style film of the time. The unflinching depiction of violence doesn’t hurt the comparison either, as L.A. Confidential is incredibly brutal. It achieves a lot of shock simply by depicting all this gruesome violence and vice in the 1950s — a time period that is typically represented as very wholesome on screen, which can color viewers’ perception of the era. However, beneath all of that, the story is extremely convoluted, and many viewers miss important connections on a first watch. Keeping track of all the moves on this chess board is daunting, but it makes the movie that much better.
In the end, the movie is a bleak depiction of law enforcement in the US and of the fight to live an ethical life in general. At the time of its release, critics praised its combination of deep character study with its simple popcorn watchability, and over time this assessment has only grown more prevalent. It’s the kind of movie you think you understood when the credits roll, but as you think about it in the days and weeks that follow, your perspective on it grows.
L.A. Confidential was nominated for nine Oscars in its time, and it won two — best supporting actress for Basinger, and best adapted screenplay for writers Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson. Since then, it has often been lauded as one of the greatest movies of its era and of its genre, included on retrospective lists by top critics and outlets.
Today, a first-time viewer can still find a lot to love about L.A. Confidential, and time has made many of its more surreal moments feel even more otherworldly. The movie is streaming now on Hulu in the U.S., and is also available on DVD and Blu-ray.
