L.A. Confidential Review

L.A. Confidential

By

Peter Foy

Ah, Los Angelas in the fifties. The glamour, the bright lights, the films, the women, the celebrities…all these things gave L.A. its subtitle of City of Angels. It seemed like paradise on earth, but as Danny Devito’s journalist character explains to the viewers at the beginning, there is a dark and heinous underworld to the place. Prostitution, dope dealing, murder, racism, and most notably police corruption all take place amidst the headlines of fame and fortune. Apparently the fifties were not as nifty as we thought they were.

L.A. Confidential is quite simply a love letter to the noir genre. It contains almost all the hallmarks such as a twisting plot, a gorgeous (yet mysterious) dame, an ensemble cast, gritty violence and the top-notch filmmaking we’ve all come to love from movies like these. While today, neo-noir films like Sin City and Gone Baby Gone incorporate both new and old aesthetics, L.A. Confidential strictly sticks to the good old classic stuff. In other words, don’t expect shurikan throwing prostitutes, or hip-hop music here.

As in many other noir films, the film doesn’t really have one main character,