L.A. Confidential
November 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

For a lover of crime thrillers, this movie has it all: mystery, action, heroes, villains, corruption, romance, chases, shootouts, and elements film noir. All are present and get along very well together. The screenplay, by Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson from a novel by James Ellroy, is tight and literate. The story is set in 1950s Los Angeles, where police corruption seems to be the name of the game rather than the exception. Guy Pearce plays Lt. Ed Exley, an idealistic, by-the-book police officer following in the footsteps of his heroic father. Russell Crowe is Bud White, a policeman who starts out as muscle for interrogations but develops a conscience along the way.

Kevin Spacey is ideally cast as Det. Sgt. Jack Vincennes, the department’s celebrity cop. Vincennes serves as technical advisor to a TV show called Badge of Honor and works in cahoots with Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito), the scummy editor of a scandal sheet called Hush-Hush. Vincennes loves the glamour and position his job gives him, but even he gets a case of honesty toward the end of the film. A lot of other folks don’t, but to tell you who they are would spoil some of the delicious plot twists and turns that keep us guessing, and interested. Let’s just say there’s a bad guy, millionaire Pierce Patchett (David Strathaim), who runs a porn service on the side where the girls each look like a famous movie star. Kim Basinger stars as Lynn Margaret Bracken, who plays Veronica Lake when she’s working.

As important to the movie as its excellent actors is its look. One of the extras is the director’s photo pitch to producers, shots of 1950s Los Angeles. Another extra, "Sunlight and Shadow: The Visual Style of L.A. Confidential," shows how the look was achieved. The video transfer does well by the sets and costumes. The picture can be a bit soft at times and there’s intentional grain to let you know that you’re watching a crime story, I suppose, but the colors are rich and deep, blacks are solid, and shadow detail is excellent.

The sound is mostly up front with a wide spread for the music and well-focused dialogue in the center. It’s a very transparent mix, but one in which all the sounds have specific locations. The rears don’t get much of a workout until the final shootout, where they kick in with a vengeance. The gunplay in this movie still registers as about the most realistic in any crime movie, though perhaps second to Children of Men. As in other recent Warner Blu-ray releases, you have to set the Dolby TrueHD sound from the menu, since the default tracks are regular Dolby Digital.

There are quite a few other extras beside the ones already mentioned, among them several additional production featurettes. The one I found the most fun is called "The L.A. of L.A. Confidential Interactive Map Tour," where one can pick a location and click on it to see scenes from the movie that take place there while hearing a an audio tour guide talk about it. There’s also the pilot from a short-lived television series with Kiefer Sutherland. Respectable enough, it seems pale when seen right after the feature film.

Jerry Goldsmith’s music is key to the success of the film, and you can listen to it on isolated tracks, though not in Dolby TrueHD. Source music is equally important and Warner has included a second disc here, a CD with tunes by Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers, Chet Baker, Kay Starr, Jackie Gleason, and Dean Martin. It's choice and classy, as is everything about this already-classic police thriller.

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