Seen on MUBI last week, paired with Michael Mann's Heat (both are in MUBI's new collection L.A. neo-noirs, nice).
L.A. Confidential (1997) follows three L.A. cops: Ed (Guy Pierce) is the good cop, Bud (Russell Crowe) is the bad cop, and Jack (Kevin Spacey) is the... dandy/debonair cop? It's a noir crime film so it's pretty dark, there's murder and corruption and police brutality (the latter based on real events). (It's a bit weird to see police brutality casually depicted on screen in the current climate. Also the film seems to condemn some types of brutality, like the beating of inmates, but not others, like threatening and beating a potential accomplice for information.)
I really liked the film, the characters and their interactions are great, but what won me over is simply the very good plot, that we see unfold from the multiple perspectives of the three cops.
8/10