The News and Observer from Raleigh, North Carolina • 95

WHAT'S UP Friday September 19 1997 9 MOVIES LA'sa dark place in 'Confidential' lor- i 3 TV0 THUMBS UR WAY UP! liiiiUT II 1111 "ROARINGLY FUNNY! AN EXUBERANT CHARMER! Hats off! 'The Full Monty' defines the phrase 'crowd pleaser" "ONE OF THE MOST ENTERTAINING MOVIES OF THE YEAR!" "A TOTAL PLEASURE! Great charm sweetness and energy!" I'M Lira Henrickuon "A SMART FUNNY OEM!" "CROWD PLEASING! A delightful comedy!" Russell Crowe as the troubled cop and Kim Basinger as the Veronica Lake lookalike in the noir 'LA Confidential' 3 SBt II I il' I I Janet Mailln REVIEW LA Confidential Actors: Kevin Spacey Russell Crowe Guy Pearce Kim Basinger Director: Curtis Hanson Theaters: Cary: Waverly Chapel Hill: Carolina Durham: Wynnsong Morrisville: Park Place Raleigh: Pleasant Valley Rating: (violence language) By Bill Morrison staff writer Noir movies usually don't make the cut at Academy Awards time "The Grifters" "Bugsy" and "GoodFellas" all deserving of best picture Oscars were ignored in the last several years So I expect "LA Confidential" to be similarly slighted although it's the best studio film I'm seen this year It's also the best noir movie since "Chinatown" to which it will be compared "LA Confidential" (based on the third novel in James Ellroy's "LA takes place in the early '50s as the studio era is coming to a close Hollywood is as embattled as ancient Rome given to excess of every kind The police are as corrupt as the mobsters and some of the city's finest are wasted on drugs and perversion It's a city out of time and out of control The studios no longer have the power to control the press and the police and the hush-hush magazines have begun to reveal what the movie magazines never dared to reveal Crime czar Mickey Cohen's doing a federal rap on a tax beef and the city's ripe for the taking Eventually everyone gets into the act including the cops the scandal magazines and the underworld Ellroy the self-styled "mad dog" of noir fiction has pushed the genre to a new level He's taken it away from the Raymond Chandler detectives and given it back to the cops His novels and this film are denned by darkness the black heart of the American dream "LA Confidential" is that rare screen adaptation a film that truly captures the essence of the original and becomes a magnificent work in its own right Ellroy's story focuses on three cops who find themselves in a downward spiral each trying to solve a mass killing at an all-night diner Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) the new golden boy of the Los Angeles Police Department Bud White (Russell Crowe) described in the novel as a time bomb with a badge and Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) the celebrity cop who serves as technical adviser on a weekly television series that celebrates the LAPD (Ellroy's inspiration was the "Dragnet" series When a couple of Mickey Cohen's goons are shot to death in the front seat of a roadster the soundtrack plays Betty Hutton's "Bye Bye Baby Hit the Road to Dreamland" And the music provides a blackly funny grace note for this joy ride through hell The director fills his screen with vivid detail and unsettling imagery A harrowing night of horror ends with the arrival of a dozen or so squad cars black snub-nosed Fords sporting huge red warning lights They come screaming out of the darkness like the hounds of hell "LA Confidential" is as seductive as "Chinatown" remember the "Chinatown" poster with the cigarette smoke rising to form a dreamy image of the equally seductive Faye Dunaway? There's always a woman in these films and the woman in "LA Confidential" (played by Kim Basinger) is a prostitute and a Veronica Lake lookalike (she works for a wealthy panderer whose women are often surgically altered to allow johns a night with the stars of their chosing) Basinger is a revelation She's physically perfect right down to the blond curl over one eye There's a wonderful scene in which we see Lake on a television screen in a scene from "This Gun for Hire" A second later Basinger appears in profile like a colorized version of the sultry screen star she resembles Basinger explains that her wealthy boss runs whores who have been cut to resemble popular film stars He gets them young often right off the bus They never have the film career they wanted but Basinger says wistfully "Thanks to Pierce we still get to act a little" It's very sad Hollywood without the greasepaint A lost world Ellroy's world Bill Morrison can be reached at 829-4764 or billmnandocom with Jack Webb) Vincennes' Boswell is a sleazemonger named Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) whose Hush-Hush magazine (read that Confidential) launches the age of sleaze journalism No one likes the bespectacled Exley and his chief (James Cromwell) says he's not cut out to be a detective He has a moral center Pearce is fascinating as the repressed golden boy who takes on forces darker than his darkest dreams (we saw Pearce first as a gay drag queen trailing a long silver scarf as he rode atop a bus in "The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Crowe has a grand time playing an Ellroy character with a scarred psyche and a barely contained anger What he is is a two-fisted Bogart Both he and Pearce have star-making roles and play them to the hilt Spacey gives an entertaining performance as a dapper cop with a dangerous smile who remembers too late why he became a cop He plays all the conflicting emotions at the end with panache He's an eloquent actor DeVito is too much as the simpering journalist but then he's always too much Thankfully his is an abbreviated role David Strathairn as the pimp Pierce Patchett and Ron Rifkin as the perverted district attorney bring apalpable evil to the screen And young Simon Baker Denny is truly tragic as a young actor who becomes a male prostitute when his film career is destroyed by a hush-hush expose Director Curtis Hanson who adapted the novel with Brian Helgeland has created a film that delivers in every way It's the Hollywood nightmare all blood-splattered and corrupt Hanson's police assaults are brilliantly staged the gun battles as exciting as they are horrible Hanson also uses popular music of the era including classic recordings by Lee Wiley and Chet Baker to comment on the action iMj4Jj Now Showing! 1 Rialto HAS 856-0111 OOWmOWNDUfflUI'HO-MW I1ECYCLE THIS NEWSMPEU.