Favourite Movies, Part 2: Off the Record, On the QT, and Very Hush-Hush

Bud White (Russell Crowe) holds back the inquisitive Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential

L.A. Confidential is a movie that lives and breathes. Starting from the credit sequence, Danny DeVito's sleazy Hollywood tabloid reporter gives us a voice-over knocking down the "wholesome" image of 1950's California to show us a world of gangs, drugs, sex, and a whole host of other illicit activities. Illicit activities that are his bread and butter, as owner/head writer/photographer for the infamous ‘Hush-Hush’ magazine. The Mickey Cohen gang rules the town, but is quickly losing its strangle-hold over L.A.’s streets as its top members are being assassinated one by one by mysterious shooters. With Mickey Cohen’s crew decisively pushed out, the question then becomes: who will take their place?

A disparate band of cops have this problem to deal with, along with a host of others, on a sleepy Christmas that will take no time to heat up. The three main players are Bud White (Russell Crowe), a burly grunt of a cop who is known for his especially vicious behaviour when protecting women, Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a slick celebrity cop who acts as police counsel for the Dragnet-styled black-and-white show “Badge of Honor”, and finally Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), a political animal who would do anything to move up in the ranks but who, unfortunately, looks a little too much like an accountant for some to fully trust as a cop.

The beauty of the movie lies in the differences between these characters. They all start off following completely different tangents, and have no particular fondness or respect for each other. They feel like real people, not guys stuck in a cop movie. Seeing how each of these different men face similar challenges or talk to the same people with wildly different approaches and results gives the story a multi-layered effect for one of the most cohesive “webs of intrigue” in the movies. Cop killings, hookers surgically made to look like movie-stars, celebrity arrests, kidnappings, and dirty politicians tie together into one nefarious scheme, only to end in one of the most exciting, vicious shootouts ever put to film. The plot moves briskly, but the film is always about the characters and how they deal with their world. Of particular mention (apart from the three amazing leads) are Kim Basinger in the role of the hooker who finds the humanity in the gruff Bud White, David Strathairn in the steely role of a rich magnate who owns half of L.A. (along with the highest-priced hookers in town), and James Cromwell who plays the fatherly police captain who seems to get a little too zealous in his fight against crime.

This is a movie of secrets and those who desire more than anything to get to the bottom of a case, no matter where it might lead. “Rolo Tomasi” is a name that encapsulates this drive to solve the case at any cost. Ed Exley’s father was a policeman, shot dead by a purse-snatching thug who was never caught. No one even knew who the killer was. Exley gives him the name Rolo Tomasi just to give him a bit of personality. His entire life was then devoted to getting to the truth and catching those guys who think they can get away with their crimes. If you share any bit of Exley’s drive and ambition, then Rolo Tomasi is here to be found.