Curtis Hansen’s L.A. Confidential, based on the novel of the same name by James Ellroy from his L.A. Quartet series, is a masterful film noir. Set in 1950s Los Angeles, the film uses the city as a canvas to paint an expansive story about crime, corruption, sex, and murder. In the special features Ellroy describes the film as well as anyone can: “Three cops on a collision with their own horrifying demons and as the centerpiece the slaughter of six people in a coffee shop meat locker.”
Officer Wendell “Bud” White (Russell Crowe) does whatever he has to in the name of justice. He has a volatile and violent temper bubbling below the surface, and man-on-woman violence is gasoline to the fire raging within him. Captain Dudley uses White’s “skills” to deal with mobsters who come to town looking to fill the void left by the recently jailed Mickey Cohen.
Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a cop who enjoys the perks of the job. He works on the Dragnet-inspired television series Badge of Honor and has an arrangement with tabloid publisher Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito) of Hush-Hush magazine, a disgusting fellow who loves photographing celebrities getting arrested.
Sergeant Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) is following in his father’s footsteps and hopes to become a detective. He is a by-the–book cop which is a detriment in the department. Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) informs Exley that if he is unwilling to plant evidence on, beat a confession out of, or shoot a guilty man in the back then he has no use for him as a detective.
On Christmas Eve, a number of cops are involved in the beating of Mexican suspects alleged to be responsible for the injuries to other officers. Exley steps forward to testify, but squeezes the Chief of Police and the District Attorney to get promoted to Lieutenant Detective in exchange, which earns the scorn of every other cop. White and Vincennes get suspended. White’s partner, Dick Stensland, is expelled from the force.
As the men start working cases, their paths began to converge. Exley is the lead investigator of six murders at the Nite Owl coffee shop. White becomes personally involved because his partner Stensland was one of the victims. He looks for clues in the life of one of the victims, Susan Lefferts, a young woman who is part of a prostitution ring of call girls made up to look like celebrities run by Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn). Vincennes helps Hudgeons set up a bust to photograph the District Attorney, who is gay, with a young male actor who has ties to Patchett. Vincennes has second thoughts and arrives before Hudgeons, but discovers things have ended tragically. As they all get closer to the truth, the bodies start to pile up and no one knows whom to trust.
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