The Unofficial Russell Crowe Resource Page

This critique is from Premiere, April 1998. The text is written by William Goldman and is here thanks to CrowePerson Sissy.

L.A. Confidential

*The* critics movie of the year. And a great torment when it turned out not to be a big hit. I, too, wish it had done better. It has marvelous stuff. The look of it, the feel, the acting, script, and direction. But -- it's confusing...it has a terrible ending...and it's phony.

The confusing charge I can sum up in one word: *heroin.* Did anyone understand that crucial part of the story? I sure didn't. I tried; I just couldn't make it make any sense. In truth, I didn't care all that much that I didn't get it. I was well compensated. But I can't say the same for the other two points.

An ending is, for me, the most important part of a movie and the hardest to make work. I think the ending of Butch Cassidy is the best of any I've been involved with, but in truth, history took care of that for me. The worst ending of any great film is Psycho's -- *seven minutes* of awful, awful psychobabble. (Rent it if you don't believe me.)

Well, in L.A. Confidential there is a super climax. A shoot-out in a motel. James Cromwell, the bad cop, shoots and kills Russell Crowe the burly good cop. Cromwell and Guy Pierce, the uptight, brilliant cop, walk out of the motel into the night. Police sirens in the distance. Now lights. A memorable shot. Cromwell turns to Pearce, says, "Hold up your badge, so they'll know you're a policeman." And Pearce plugs the bas____ in the back. Cromwell falls. Pearce takes out his badge holds it high. Final fade-out.

Oops, sorry -- *should* have been the final fade-out. I think if it had been, I might have voted it Best Picture. *Six minutes* of anguish follow. Fatally damaging the film. But before I get into why that is, I have to talk about what I mean when I say the film is phony.

You can divide movies up any way you want, but one way is this: There are two kinds of films, let's call them Hollywood films and Art (or Independent) films. This is not about quality -- I much prefer Hollywood films, and the best ones are, of course, art. And I find most Art films dull and pretentious. But clearly there are differences, and my definitions follow. Hollywood films want to tell us truths we already know or falsehoods we want to believe in. In other words, *they reinforce.* Art films want to disturb us, to tell us truths we don't want to know. In other words, *they unsettle.*

Okay, back to the flick. About 90 minutes in, this straightlaced, brilliant, tight-assed cop, Guy Pearce, f___s a third-rate wh___. Why does he do it? Because she's not a third-rate wh___, boys and girls, some scabby slut who's a Veronica Lake look-alike, she's -- roll of drums please -- *Kim Basinger.* Well, of course he f___s her. My god, *she's a movie star.* Who could resist?

Well, he *must.* Because the character he's been playing would. (Snapshots are taken of their carousing, which spurs the plot. But they could have been taken of her just kissing him -- before he rejected her.) Anyway, as I sat there, a deep chord of phoniness was struck. But I did my best to silence it till that awful ending, in which Pearce, the tight-assed cop, explains the entire plot -- about which, believe me, we don't give a sh__ -- and then the bad cops and the good cops get together and save all their asses. (Are your eyes glazing over reading this? Think what it was like sitting there.)

Anyway, after a few minutes of this madness, Kim baby appears. (By the way, she is splendid in the part, her best work since Nadine.) And I thought, What in hell is she doing here? Then she leads Pearce outside -- and my heart sank. Because Russell Crowe, the cop who was killed in the house, he *lived.* Cromwell, the most lethal and evil guy in all of L.A., *missed.* I'm groaning now. Crowe goes off into the sunset to live with Basinger, who -- guess what -- is a wh___ no longer.

I'm sorry guys, you can't do that.

You can't work both sides of the street. The Art-film side -- unsettle us, tell us that evil exists on Earth and we can't stop it and it's going to triumph. And the Hollywood side -- wh____s have hearts of gold, skilled killers miss at point-blank when it's most crucial for them to shoot straight. And why? *So that true love will conquer.* Look, I wrote The Princess Bride -- I believe in true love. And I *want* it to conquer. But *not* in L.A. Confidential. It is dead wrong here, it is phony here, and it kills what was and is a wonderful achievement.

Just not wonderful enough.

Back to the previous page

This website is in no way affiliated with nor endorsed by Russell Crowe. All the material on the website is collected from already existing websites, from various publications or from mailing lists. Claims, comments or contributions should be mailed to the webmaster.