L.A. Confidential: A

In Los Angeles, in the 50s, there was in fact a magazine named Confidential. It specialized in breathless exposes of crime, and drugs, and sex...all with beautiful, photo-friendly, victims of course. It was the periodical of its day, but it also suffered a fate now no tabloid would ever allow itself to be ensnared it: the lawsuit. And as quickly as Confidential came around, so it left. But its influence is markedly apparent on many things, not the least of which is Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential, and not the least because its look and feel promise a seething underworld caper, and then deliver in full.

Phsyically the magazine shows up in the movie as Hush-Hush, the rag published by Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) - a sleazy and snobby man in the vein of most DeVito characters who delivers the opening monologue of the film in a tone of acrid capriciousness - but spiritually, the tone of that real-life pre-tabloid hovers over and inspires Hanson's picture; it induces us, teases us, into the gray area between all great This-or-Thats: morality, ethical behavior, image, reality, romance - to L.A. Confidential it might all just come with a disclaimer: "Subject to Change." Yet in the exploration of that moral and emotional twilight that the period dwelt in, the director (and his co-screenwriter, Brian Helgeland) teases out not just a great film noir, but also a compelling character study with attractive noir underpinings. At most times, in fact, they intermingle, fighting over thematic prominence on the screen. This is a film dedicated to the period atmosphere, but not to the actual period: we as the audience are treated to all the neccessary 50s trappings (the Jazz, the cars) without being condescended to them.

The nature of such entertainment - what allows the watcher to relish the details as yet another contemporary/period twist - springs directly from the work being done. L.A. Confidential is based on a novel by James Ellroy (whose work inspired 2006's far more lackluster The Black Dahlia), an author whose work came decades after the literary noir renaissance yet still managed to live up to Chandler and the like. His secret, and its a secret that transposes itself easily over the film as well, is in his sardonic tribute and deconstruction of the pulpy noir. Ellroy can look back and see Los Angeles for the monolith of corruption it was, but also find an inner well of self-deprecation. (This was the City of Angels at a time when such celestial beings were probably off vacationing in Seattle.)

As a filmmaker, Curtis Hanson uses that as his starting point - indeed, its mark is all over the opening sequence - only to then build on and flesh out that idea. He and Helgeland condense the original's famously thick plot without once losing sight of their main characters. In telling the story of how three cops - Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), Bud White (Russell Crowe), and Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) - become embroiled in a series of mob hits and random massacres that never seem to add up, L.A. Confidential never loses its audience in turn to each turn of the characters, as they guide themselves along the poorly-lit and twisty corridor of The Plot. Each man starts out as a corrupt lout, or a careerist prick, or some combination of the two. But by film's end, as in all good film noirs, there is a measure of appropriate redemption. And during film's journey, as in all good film noirs, there is more than an appropriate measure of wit, sex, sleaze, and bullets flying into skulls.

As the man who would later direct the flirty, flinty, chick flick In Her Shoes, the half-baked Lucky You, and the up-from-the-streets rab fable (that made a movie star out of Eminem) 8 Mile, Hanson shows a striking aptitude for bending steamy period convention to his talented hand. In my mind, the best example of this isn't in his translation of the story (it still occasionally loses a viewer or two along the way) but in the character he's created as the femme fatale: Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), a high-class prostitute with an eerie resemblence to Veronica Lake. Lynn, as both a woman and a character, is remarkable in that she alone sees her motivations for what they are throughout the film; and Basinger, both as a woman and an actress, is remarkable for what she does with that weary belief in herself: she twists each word of her dialogue into a sexy come-on that echoes years of ache - and as she finishes speaking, her lips perpetually turn-up at the ends in some mockery of ironic foreplay. Its a delightful, finely-wrought performance. And she stands at the forefront of the cast, who does great work themselves. Together, they keep the narrative gears in motion, and the deeply entertaining film they're acting in, well, deeply entertaining. L.A. Confidential is almost tonally flawless (though, as much as it gave me a guilty thrill, the whole "Bud White & Ed Exley: Best Friends Forever!" ending gave me some pause), and, at 138-minutes, extraordinarily satisfying. It demands your full attention while watching, so as not to miss one solitary rich detail, but it then rewards that attention double throughout.