Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: SPACEY,KEVIN
EAN: 9780790734859
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0790734850
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: April 21, 1998
Running Time: 138 minutes
Sales Rank: 3269
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: September 19, 1997
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Three police detectives each use their own approach to find the truth behind a group murder.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-JUN-2005
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com essential video:
In a time when it seems that every other movie makes some claim to being a film noir, L.A. Confidential is the real thing--a gritty, sordid tale of sex, scandal, betrayal, and corruption of all sorts (police, political, press--and, of course, very personal) in 1940s Hollywood. The Oscar-winning screenplay is actually based on several titles in James Ellroy's series of chronological thriller novels (including the title volume, The Big Nowhere, and White Jazz)--a compelling blend of L.A. history and pulp fiction that has earned it comparisons to the greatest of all Technicolor noir films, Chinatown. Kim Basinger richly deserved her Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of a conflicted femme fatale; unfortunately, her male costars are so uniformly fine that they may have canceled each other out with the Academy voters: Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, and James Cromwell play LAPD officers of varying stripes. Pearce's character is a particularly intriguing study in Hollywood amorality and ambition, a strait-laced 'hero' (and son of a departmental legend) whose career goals outweigh all other moral, ethical, and legal considerations. If he's a good guy, it's only because he sees it as the quickest route to a promotion. --Jim Emerson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - "I admire you as a policeman - particularly your adherence to violence as a necessary adjunct to the job. "
Film noir continues to be one of the most difficult genres to make well particularly today (I'd note for purists that film noirs are largely in black & white a fixture of the genre). Film directors can't hide the flaws of a noir behind big explosions, car chases or visual effects. "L.A. COnfidential" probably isn't for everyone because it combines the film noir genre with a solid mystery and strong dramatic performances.
Set in Los Angeles during the early 1950's, "L.A. Confidential" opens with a bang quite literally--Three very different detectives the by-the-book golden boy Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), the hard nosed violent Bud White (Russell Crowe) and the celebrity obsessed Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey)try and unravel the conspiracy behind a seemingly random shotgun slaying at a popular diner and how it is tied into the murders of organized crime kingpin Mickey Cohen's gang. The three detectives make a reluctant team hoping to solve the crime and achieve their own personal agendas in the process. They also must find out how Lynn Bracken (Kim Bassinger) a hooker who looks like Veronica Lake and a cavalcade of other hookers made up to look like Hollywood stars figure into all of this.
Well directed by Curtis Hansen from a terrific script by Brian Helgeland and Hansen that manages to adapt James Ellroy's novel without betraying its story or atmosphere, "L.A. Confidental" was nominated for a bucket load of Oscars winning two for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting ... Read More
Rating: - Excellent, acting was top drawer.
This is my first glimpse of Russell Crowe, and omg, what a hunk o' man. Does he have any brothers? I haven't seen a leading man in decades that looked and acted all man like him. I will see any movie he is in, no matter how crummy. Just to drool at him. Bring back the real leading men like him, not the whiney, ugly, wimps we've been enduring since the eighties.
Rating: - They dont make movies like this anymore!
To call this movie superb...is an understatement.
A spectacular film that should have taken home every major Academy Award.
Proof that the Academy has truly lost touch with what making a film is all about
Best Actor: Russel Crowe
Best Supporting Actor: Kevin Spacey Or Guy Pierce (pick one)
Best Picture (titanic.???? really???)
Best Actress: Kim Basinger (which she received)
Best Director: Curtis Hanson
The great thing about this film is the 3 protaganist theme.
Officer Bud White (Russel Crowe), the brutal police officer who hands out his own brand of justice and has a thing for helping women in distress . Ed Exley (Guy Pierce), the strait laced, by the book ladder climber and Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), the hollywood bigger than life cop who is caught up in the underworld of lurid payoffs and sleazy tabloid journalists.
It is a work of art how the Director, Curtis Hanson weaves all three into the frey at a breakneck pace until The film's exposive climax. A shootout at a rundown hotel that will go down in history as one of the most exciting and taught gunfights in the history of movies.
Hanson, by using two relatively unkowns to play the Parts of Bud White and Ed Exley, makes this movie a Character driven plot instad of a star driven vehicle.
And the plot, deftly adapted from James Ellroy's novel is just a work of art. Believable, Not too big for its britches, intricate in its subtlety and incredibly ... Read More
Rating: - The Best Film of the 1997
Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake
I don't care if TITANIC did win the Oscar. For my money, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL was the best film of 1997.
Scratch That! It's the best picture to come out of Hollywood in the last 20 years.
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL is prime film noir. It ranks right up there with the great ones, such as DOUBLE INDEMNITY, OUT OF THE PAST and THE BIG SLEEP. And, as much as I admire and consistently enjoy those classic movies, I think that L.A. CONFIDENTIAL is the finest of the lot.
Adapting James Ellroy's intricately-plotted, sometimes confusing, novel was certainly a monumental task for writer/director Curtis Hanson and his screenwriting collaborator, Brian Helgeland. Not only did they have to bring to life more than a half-dozen key characters, but there were also several intertwined plot lines to juggle.
Hanson and Helgeland did an admirable job. Their characters are real and, although the story is complicated, by the end credits, everything is explained. There are no loose ends. Truly, the movie is better than the book.
Set in a superbly re-created 1950's Los Angeles, the film's primary storyline concerns the real reasons behind a mass murder in the Night Owl Cafe. Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kevin Spacey, three police detectives of widely different backgrounds and agendas, ultimately join together to battle police corruption, the Mob and, at times, each other. Along the way, they interact ... Read More
Rating:  - Movie: 4.5/5 Picture Quality: 4.25/5 Sound Quality: 4/5 Extras: 3.5/5
Version: U.S.A / Warner Brothers / Region A, B, C
VC-1 BD-50 / 1080p / 23.976fps / Advanced Profile 3
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Running time: 2:17:53
Movie size: 34,02 GB
Disc size: 42,31 GB
Average video bit rate: 22.91 Mbps
Dolby TrueHD Audio English 1464 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 1464kbps (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio German 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Italian 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 192kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 192 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 192kbps
Subtitles: English SDH / Chinese (traditional and simplified) / Danish / Dutch / Finnish / German / Italian / Norwegian / Portuguese / Spanish / Swedish
Number of chapters: 40
Disc 1:
#Audio commentary
#Trailer gallery and TV spots
#Music-only ... Read More
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