This sparkling adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel touches on countless pieces of old Tinseltown lore: the Robert Mitchum marijuana bust, a supposed brothel of Veronica Lake lookalikes, and a notorious level of LAPD collusion with studio bosses and mobsters.
It’s played with perfect understatement by Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger.
Looking to avoid stale mimicry, director Curtis Hanson asked the cast to study a host of films starring Sterling Hayden and Humphrey Bogart. The aim was for the actors to inhabit the physicality and mood of those films rather than to blindly copycat.
L.A. Confidential’s genius is that it should be camp, but it dispenses with overt self-awareness, achieving a level of genuine suspense.
Jack Vincennes
Kevin Spacey
Wendell ‘Bud’ White
Russell Crowe
Edmund ‘Ed’ Exley
Guy Pearce
Captain Dudley Smith
James Cromwell
Morehouse Pierce Patchett
David Strathairn
Lynn Bracken
Kim Basinger
Sid Hudgens
Danny DeVito
Officer Richard (Dick) Stensland
Graham Beckel
Matt Reynolds
Simon Baker
Brett Chase
Matt McCoy
Mickey Cohen
Paul Guilfoyle
DA Ellis Loew
Ron Rifkin
Johnny Stompanato
Paolo Seganti
Karen
Symba Smith
Bobby
Bob Clendenin
Susan Lefferts
Amber Smith
Leland ‘Buzz’ Meeks
Darrell Sandeen
Tammy Jordan
Shawnee Free Jones
Officer Michael Breuning
Tomas Arana
Officer William Carlisle
Michael McCleery
Mrs Lefferts
Gwenda Deacon
Sugar Ray Collins
Jeremiah Birkett
Louis Fontaine
Salim Grant
Ty Jones
Kareem Washington
Inez Soto
Marisol Padilla Sanchez
Sylvester Fitch
Jeff Sanders
Roland Navarette
Steve Lambert
Lana Turner
Brenda Bakke
Director
Curtis Hanson
