L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

Was it the popcorn and  coca cola that left the uneasy lump 
in my stomach and nerves after seeing this film? No, it was 
the zippy dialogue and beautiful look of LA CONFIDENTIAL, 
the crackerjack pace, the sudden and delectible fashes of 
ultra-violence, of scathing wit, it was all this and more 
that made me leave the theater after seeing LA CONFIDENTIAL 
nearly doubled-over in queasy delight, wondering why in god's 
green hell there wasn't more film cranked out of such 
relentlessly high quality.

The plot centers around the LAPD in 1950's Hollywood and 
any fans of Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" or Nathaniel 
West's "Day of the Locust" will barely be able to contain 
their wide-eyed glee at the loving attention to sordid period 
detail. Kevis Spacey and Russell Crowe blaze their way into the 
pantheon of new leading men, showing cyncial wit and intelligence 
in addition to bare-knuckled leading man noirish moxy. 
Tom Cruise, you and your smarmy, clueless buddies take a lesson.

Based on a James Ellroy mystery, LA CONFIDENTIAL crackles with 
intelligence and competence. Not since the Warner Bros. gangster 
pics of the thirties have we seen a picture at once so seedy and 
so richly lucid at the same time. 

Grade: A