LA CONFIDENTIAL

LA CONFIDENTIAL put a modern spin on the hard-boiled noir, reinvigorating the genre and leading to an Oscar win for Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The world they create on screen is partly familiar – Hollywood of the 1950s. But the story mostly takes place in its seedy underbelly, and the plot is full of twists and turns and characters with hidden agendas.

Somehow, working from the dense novel by James Ellroy, Helgeland and Hanson intertwine the stories of three LA policemen and bring them to a satisfying joint conclusion.

The script is so tight that even quieter scenes, like the first encounter between Officer Bud (Russell Crowe) and Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), crackle with intense energy.

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