Supplements:

• Off the Record..., a 19-minute behind-the-scenes documentary with the film's creators, lead actors and novelist James Ellroy
• Interactive The L.A. of L.A. Confidential map tour, with director's commentary about the movie's L.A. locations
• Alternate music-only track of Jerry Goldsmith's Oscar-nominated score in 5.1 Surround
• Theatrical trailer & 3 TV spots

Directed by Curtis Hanson. Starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, David Strathairn.

Endless sunshine, alluring glamour, easy money and an industry known as Hollywood --the entire country is transfixed by these seductive images. But beneath the gleaming surface of 1950s Los Angeles lies a corrupt soul. As the energy and growth of post-war America fuels the combustible mix of fantasy and reality, something is bound to explode.

In L.A. Confidential, a diverse gallery of characters brings the parallel realities of Los Angeles to life: the smooth, glamorous beauties and charming, ambitious men of one world cross abruptly into the twisted, dissolute and lawless terrain of the other. The fantasy is pierced, the shimmering facade shattered.

Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a celebrity cop. He serves as technical advisor to the weekly TV drama that created the image of the L.A.P.D. as the finest police force in the world. Vincennes wears his celebrity for all the city to see, in the way he dresses, the people with whom he associates and the way he carries himself.

Vincennes also participates in vice busts of show-business personalities with Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito). Hudgeons is the editor of the celebrity tell-all magazine Hush-Hush; he's a visionary sleazemonger and the originator of the tabloid journalism industry.

Jack Vincennes becomes involved in a murder investigation which will link him inextricably to fellow detectives Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) and Bud White (Russell Crowe) and lead all three into a dangerously tightening spiral of murder, corruption and intrigue.

Ed Exley is a highly ambitious police officer on the rise. The golden boy of the "new" L.A.P.D, he is a man despised by his fellow cops.

In direct contrast to Exley is Bud White, who's dogged in his pursuit of justice.

Exley and White, for all their differences, have one thing in common: a mysterious and beautiful woman named Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger). White questions Lynn as a possible key to a murder, but finds himself falling in love with her.

Exley, on the other hand, is rigidly repressed, but Lynn triggers his deepest desires. When he learns that Bud, a man he despises, is having an affair with Lynn, it becomes the catalyst of Exley's hatred for the other man.

But both detectives soon find they're trying to solve the same case, under the watchful eye of their boss, the infinitely wise and pragmatic Capt. Dudley Smith (James Cromwell). Also observing their progress are Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn), a wealthy and enigmatic social figure; the venal District Attorney, Ellis Lowe (Ron Rifkin); and the entire police department.

As Exley and White each begin to connect everything that's happening, they become increasingly isolated from those they thought they could trust, until finally they discover a most unlikely bond, one that culminates in truly life or-death fashion.

Set in the Los Angeles of the 1950s, L.A. Confidential looks into the lives of three police officers whose characters and deepest emotions are revealed in the wake of a bewildering mass murder. The murder investigation and the cast of people who become involved in it are shown as facets of a city driven by ambition, money and desire.

This kind of situation repeated itself to a degree in 1998 when the two top contenders were Titanic and L.A. Confidential. This battle didn't equal "Gump - Fiction" levels, since Titanic received a much better critical reaction than did the saccharine Gump, but nonetheless the critical consensus backed the less crowd-pleasing L.A. Confidential.

I rooted for Titanic to win both because I liked it best and because I'm a big fan of James Cameron (Aliens is probably my all-time favorite film), so I was pleased with the result. Had the voting gone the other way, however, I would not have been terribly disappointed, for L.A. Confidential was an undeniably terrific film as well.

Initially I was not terribly interested in seeing L.A. Confidential; I've never been a big fan of the kind of stylized period piece it seemed to be, so I planned to take a pass on it. However, good reviews and a long day in a strange town with nothing to do but go to a movie conspired to send me to see it.

As you've undoubtedly already concluded, I was quite pleasantly surprised. L.A. Confidential wasn't actually a pretentious attempt to redo Raymond Chandler after all; instead I found it to be a compelling story of corruption and the forces that drive people to do what they do. Although it occasionally sagged, it maintained a fairly consistent level of interest and entertainment over its two plus hour running time.

I've now seen L.A. Confidential an additional two times on DVD, and although the film is essentially a mystery - a genre that tends to lose a lot of appeal on repeated viewings - the movie continues to intrigue and interest me. Partially this is because the plot is complicated enough that it takes a few extra sittings to truly take it all in; the film has an above-average number of characters, all of whom do quite a lot, so there are rarely dull moments.

As a whole, the cast is terrific, and the quality of their acting also supports repeated viewings. Frankly, it is amazing to know that both of the leads - Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce - are Australian; you'd never know from their performances. (While a lot of their dialogue appears to have been dubbed, that is the case with much of the cast, so this doesn't appear to be one of those Goldfinger cases where the actors original speech was at fault.) Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito live up to their reputations as well, and David Strathairn provides a typically fine supporting job.

Two performances are of special note. First, Kim Basinger's work deserves comment since she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role. I'm still not sure her acting was award-worthy, but I do acknowledge that she did quite well with the role. It's a very low-key, subdued performance, during which she never displays any of the kind of movie-star glitz that I would have expected from her; she truly brings out the weariness of her character.

I also wanted to note the acting of James Cromwell because I've slowly started to realize that he's one of the most versatile and consistently solid character actors around today. Look at a cross-section of a few of his roles: kindly Farmer Hoggett in Babe, eccentric inventor in Star Trek: First Contact, and sleazy police captain in L.A. Confidential; in each of these roles and many more, he quietly but convincingly did his work. All that, and he played a shifty swinger in an episode of Three's Company I saw a few months back! Now THAT'S versatility!

As usual, Warner Bros. has done a terrific job of translating L.A. Confidential to the DVD market; they're one of the few companies whose mistakes are far outweighed by their successes. First off, the picture quality of this DVD is absolutely spectacular. Much of the film uses lighting that creates a lot of contrast light levels within each frame; bright light tends to come in from the side of the frame, which creates part of the image that's very bright and part that's much darker. Translating such complex images to home video can be a recipe for disaster, but this DVD succeeds quite well in delivering a consistently excellent picture. The image maintains a high level of crispness throughout, and though the colors are generally muted and somewhat sepia-toned, they come through accurately and vibrantly when necessary.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix also pleases, though not to a degree that equals the picture quality. Although the audio frequently creates a nice sound environment, it's not an especially active mix. While the rear surrounds occasionally blast gunfire and the effects of such, usually those channels are reserved for either music or muted ambient effects.

Probably the weakest aspect of the audio mix concerns the dubbing that I previously mentioned. Extensive portions of the dialogue appear to have been rerecorded, and not terribly convincingly; much too frequently, speech seems out of sync with the images. At first this appeared to be an "Aussie problem" since Guy Pearce's dialogue in his opening scene seems to be completely dubbed, but the issue occurs with virtually every actor in the film. I rarely notice dubbed speech, but it really stood out to me in this movie. Once you get past that problem, however, all else on the sound mix works well.

Warner Bros. again provides a nice batch of supplemental materials with the L.A. Confidential DVD. Best of the bunch are two behind the scenes features, Off the Record and Photo Pitch. Although both are brief - about 15 minutes and 8 minutes, respectively - they nonetheless combine to provide a decent overview of the creation and completion of the picture. If for no other reason, I loved Off the Record because it followed movie scenes of the leads with short interview clips; it's quite amusing to hear Pearce and Crowe do their American bits and then hear them as they truly are.

I was also entertained to contrast my mental images of what director/screenwriter Curtis Hanson and screenwriter Brian Helgeland would look like and how they actually appear. I didn't remember that Hanson had already directed films like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and The River Wild, so I thought he would probably be a fairly young, semi-indie director type. I couldn't have been more wrong; he looks more like an aging slightly bohemian college professor to me. And in collaboration with Hanson? Helgeland, who looks like he should be hanging out at a skate park and downing some Mountain Dew. (Interesting side note mentioned on the DVD: Helgeland's directorial debut comes with Mel Gibson's Payback, which opens two days from the date I'm writing this.)

Other than those two features, the L.A. Confidential DVD also includes The L.A. of L.A. Confidential, a program that provides brief snippets of information on the real-life details of the locations used in the film. It's interesting but is marred by an awkward interface; although there are about ten locations listed, you can only access one clip at a time. Since the clips are brief - 20 to 30 seconds each - and the DVD handles them somewhat awkwardly (at least on my Panasonic 110), it becomes a tedious exercise to check out all of them. Warner Bros. should have included an option to simply play them in succession.

Finally, the DVD features a few short written essays about the mob and L.A. of the era, the usual cast and crew biographies, three TV ads and the theatrical trailer. All decent stuff but nothing spectacular. Overall, the extras on L.A. Confidential are a compelling lot; the only piece missing is an audio commentary, which could have been terrific (and which would have boosted my rating from "B+" to a solid "A").

That notable omission aside, L.A. Confidential makes for an outstanding DVD. The combination of fine movie, terrific transfer, solid supplemental materials, and low price earns it a high recommendation from me.