L.A. Confidential, based on the novel by James Ellroy

L.A. Confidential, based on the novel by James Ellroy

This film is one of the most popular and it is placed at number 106 on the list voted by audiences.

It has also won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Kim Basinger in the role of Lynn Bracken and an Oscar for Best Screenplay.

A list with the other actors and their respective roles would reveal the immense talent involved in this production:

Kevin Spacey -Jack Vincennes, Russell Crowe -Bud White, Guy Pearce-Ed Exley, Danny DeVito -Sid Hudgens

Jack Vincennes is the policeman who wants attention, he has a corrupt arrangement with Sid Hudgens, who is the editor and owner of a tabloid which prints photos of arrests, important drugs captures, but also innuendo and salacious details when it has them.

In exchange for money, Vincennes provides the details of the address and the photographer from the newspaper is waiting to get exclusive coverage

One night, suspects of an assault on the police force are brought to the station and a number of those inside start beating the detainees, with Bud White trying to calm his partner in the first place and joining in the punishment when he is insulted.

Other journalists were present and they had the chance to take pictures of the officers beating those in their custody, with a scandal that has some victims, scape goats and some suspensions.

Vincennes is moved from his previous department and his lucrative position, Bud White is  sent off, only to be reinstated by the chief Dudley Smith, with nefarious intentions.

The only one promoted is the "rat" Ed Exley, who will soon get famous, after he arrives at the scene of a multiple homicide, is in charge of the investigation, catches the suspects after they escape and shoots a few, gaining  a medal for valor.

Bud White hates him, for his testimony had been crucial in sending his partner into early retirement and then death, as he is one of the victims of the serial killers.

This simpler, rough, rather violent detective falls in love with Lynn Bracken, who works in the sex industry, as part of an operation controlled by the rich, ruthless Pierce Patchett.

White, Exley and Vincennes uncover dirty secrets and start putting the pieces of the puzzle together, but one of them is killed and the others are in death danger, as they become a menace for the new leader of the drug trade in L.A.

A male prostitute is used to blackmail the gay D.A. And then murdered, Vincennes finds about this and the Fleurs de Lys illegal enterprise, with more details regarding previous, old dossier and somebody in the higher hierarchy of the police, involved in some suspicious cases.

Ed Exley arrives at the house of Lynn and he wants information about White, who is a nemesis at that time, only to be seduced by the woman who was staging a compromising photo shootout to be used against the man from whom she wanted to defend her lover.

Alas, Bud White has had traumas in his childhood, tells the story of the attack on his mother, killed by the father who had tied him and left the body to be discovered only after a few days.

He cannot stand violence against women, in one scene he takes all the Christmas decorations down from a house and beats the man who was abusing a woman inside and Bud saw it, confronted, challenged the molester and made him pay for it.

Yet, when he finds the photos with Lynn and Ed, planted to make him furious and eliminate the latter from the game, as he was coming too close to the truth, he kicks the woman he loves and continues to find and kill his rival.

Exley explains the rules of the game, that this is a set up and White needs to think and see that he is trapped and does exactly what the killers want him to do.

The former enemies are destined to work together now and they actually depend on one another, seeing as they are alone against an organized crime group, which is determined to eliminate them, as they have done with journalists, witnesses, opponents, in short anybody who stood in their way or presented a threat of any kind.

And the Godfather of this whole Mafia like organization is the one we least expect.