L.A. Confidential

Just as the sunny and idyllic suburban Los Angeles makes a beautiful mask for domestic violence, Mexican women strapped to the bed, dead bodies in the basement, and a pile of gunmen in the public toilets, a cop's musty, rotten, and lost soul is framed by the aura of good intentions that got him to join the force in the first place. Touching; today's movies work the exact opposite way. (2010-06-19)

A top-notch crime movie with an excellent cast. I must admit that I sometimes got a little lost in the sea of names and twists, but in the end everything turned out well when I found my feet again and continued watching with eyes out on stalks, watching them get to the bottom of this clever case. A flawless work. (2010-02-14)

One of the best crime movies I have ever seen, and also one of the best scripts. Complex, mysterious, unpredictable, yet not confusing, it can be understood with a little attention. Personally, (hough it is a very similar movie) better than The Usual Suspects, because whereas that one mainly benefited from its shocking ending, here everything is carefully dissected, making the whole a little better. Curtis Hanson made a great film, one of the best crime movies and one of the most accomplished scripts ever. (2004-07-21)

One of the themes of this film is organized crime. After all, it is about controlling Mickey Cohen's activities. Police corruption takes the lead role, though. I'm not exactly a fan of Russell Crowe, to put it mildly, but the film is so perfect that I actually liked him in it, too. A stellar cast, excellent writing and direction, perfect retro vibe, not a single dull moment. I can't find any fault with this film. L. A. Confidential is definitely one of my favorite crime movies. (2017-07-23)

Directed in a clear, formally "retro-cool" style, the plot is multi-layered yet still engaging, and the acting is perfectly precise. It deftly makes 1950s America and the City of Angels into an alluring backdrop, within whose seemingly heavenly purity lies the dirtiness of a morality to which human life, let alone the law are sacred. Over the expansive 130-minute runtime, Hanson fleshes out the characters of the police officers, who surely deserved better personal histories than the boilerplate phrase about an abused child's sordid past or an exemplary son following in his father's footsteps. This is only broken by Kevin Spacey's cynical, self-righteous Jack Vincennes when, when asked why he joined the police, he replies "I don't really remember." Yet even that doesn't stop the film from captivating us with every frame, from breathing its amazing atmosphere onto audiences, but also making them wonder how the hell Kim Basinger could win an Oscar for such a role. PS: For me, the moment when Bud White breaks the chair is one of the most iconic moments of cinema. (2006-12-07)