L.A. Confidential

Directed in a clear, formally "retro-cool" style, the plot is multi-layered yet still engaging, and the acting is perfectly precise. It deftly makes 1950s America and the City of Angels into an alluring backdrop, within whose seemingly heavenly purity lies the dirtiness of a morality to which human life, let alone the law are sacred. Over the expansive 130-minute runtime, Hanson fleshes out the characters of the police officers, who surely deserved better personal histories than the boilerplate phrase about an abused child's sordid past or an exemplary son following in his father's footsteps. This is only broken by Kevin Spacey's cynical, self-righteous Jack Vincennes when, when asked why he joined the police, he replies "I don't really remember." Yet even that doesn't stop the film from captivating us with every frame, from breathing its amazing atmosphere onto audiences, but also making them wonder how the hell Kim Basinger could win an Oscar for such a role. PS: For me, the moment when Bud White breaks the chair is one of the most iconic moments of cinema. (08/12/2006)

A film so perfect that I'd like to climb each letter of the Hollywood sign in turn and salute it at length over the City of Angels. The retro atmosphere is so captivating that in the nineties it must have set the old generation's loins on fire. The actors are absolutely fabulous, from the characterful tough-guy Crowe to the role model Pearce and the cool playboy Spacey to the cold-blooded Cromwell, the direction is as polished as a pop star's fingernails (the scene with the corpse under the house is heart-attack inducing), and then there’s the script!! One bloody event unleashes an unreadable chain of intrigue and murder in which everyone is somehow implicated, and it's so damn wonderful to watch, thanks to the slowly unfolding communicativeness, the rhythmic switches between multiple storylines, and the superb portrayal of all the characters, that when it's over it seems the most sensible course of action to watch it again immediately. The only thing that’s beyond my comprehension is the Oscar for Basinger, the Academy must have had some kind of extended version where she's naked in the shower for 15 minutes, otherwise I don't get it... 100% (09/05/2011)

One of the best crime movies I have ever seen, and also one of the best scripts. Complex, mysterious, unpredictable, yet not confusing, it can be understood with a little attention. Personally, (hough it is a very similar movie) better than The Usual Suspects, because whereas that one mainly benefited from its shocking ending, here everything is carefully dissected, making the whole a little better. Curtis Hanson made a great film, one of the best crime movies and one of the most accomplished scripts ever. (22/07/2004)

A top-notch crime movie with an excellent cast. I must admit that I sometimes got a little lost in the sea of names and twists, but in the end everything turned out well when I found my feet again and continued watching with eyes out on stalks, watching them get to the bottom of this clever case. A flawless work. (15/02/2010)

Just as the sunny and idyllic suburban Los Angeles makes a beautiful mask for domestic violence, Mexican women strapped to the bed, dead bodies in the basement, and a pile of gunmen in the public toilets, a cop's musty, rotten, and lost soul is framed by the aura of good intentions that got him to join the force in the first place. Touching; today's movies work the exact opposite way. (19/06/2010)