L.A. Confidential (1997)

I've heard about this movie almost all my life since it first came out when I was in the 4th grade and I’ve would never see it till I was nineteen, ten years after it came out in theaters, and thought it was really good. Released in September 1997 and based on James Ellroy’s 1990 crime fiction novel, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL tells the story about three very different 1950’s Los Angeles Police Officers: the slick and likable Hollywood Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey); the violent and most feared Officer Wendell ‘Bud’ White (Russell Crowe); and a by the book golden boy Det. Lt. Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce), who all investigate an all night diner shooting that becomes a mystery involving heroin, prostitution, and corruption. I loved both performances by Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. When the filming of this movie was underway in the early summer of 1996, the execs at Warner Bros. Studios and the film’s producer Arnon Milchan were against the director’s idea of casting two non-American actors (who both Crowe and Pearce in real life are Australians) for the roles of Bud White and Ed Exley, but they were both unknowns at the time and Milchan was worried about the idea but later got over it. I also thought Spacey, along with Danny DeVito as the sleazy tabloid journalist Sid Hudgens; James Cromwell (Babe) as the Irish-American L.A. Police Captain Dudley Smith; David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) as billionaire Pierce Morehouse Patchett; and Kim Basinger, in her Academy Award winning performance for Best Supporting Actress, as the Veronica Lake lookalike call-girl Lynn Bracken, were all fantastic in their roles. Director Curtis Hanson (8 Mile, Wonder Boys, The River Wild) directed a damn good crime thriller that's filled with lots of twists, surprises, and some good action that make it a true Hollywood movie classic.