LA Confidential - disappointed with the ending <SPOILER>
Erik M
You *won't* want to read this if you haven't seen the film yet.
Is it just me, or did anyone else think the ending a total let down?
Personally, I felt that the film deserved better than to descend into
a mass shoot-em-up just for the sake of wrapping everything up neatly,
especially since we have seen this ending so many times before (Devil
in a Blue Dress, anyone?).
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the film as a whole, but that
ending seemed to belong in a different film, and places it firmly
second to Chinatown, in my books.
Speaking of books, I'm planning on reading the book, but as it is part
of a series (five parts, I think), can anyone who has read them say if
I ought to start with the first story?
Erik M.
Brian Duguid
n...@kmount.spamblock.globalnet.co.uk (Erik M) wrote:
[THIS REPLY CONTAINS SIGNIFICANT SPOILER]
>Is it just me, or did anyone else think the ending a total let down?
>Personally, I felt that the film deserved better than to descend into
>a mass shoot-em-up just for the sake of wrapping everything up neatly,
>especially since we have seen this ending so many times before (Devil
>in a Blue Dress, anyone?).
The ending, like much of the film, is substantially different to the
book, which ties things up much more messily. Different main
characters die in the book, and in very different ways. Apart from
this, I thought the ending to the film was fine: the shooting was less
relevant than the fact that Exley had to become like Smith in order to
defeat him.
>Speaking of books, I'm planning on reading the book, but as it is part
>of a series (five parts, I think), can anyone who has read them say if
>I ought to start with the first story?
It's a 4-part quartet: The Black Dahlia; The Big Nowhere; LA
Confidential; White Jazz. Several characters recur throughout, and
several make appearances in Ellroy's other novels e.g. Dick Contino's
Blues (short stories) and, I think, Clandestine. They are definitely
best read in the right order - in particular it's good to read White
Jazz after LA Confidential (as I'm about to do) because it gives two
quite different viewpoints on a major character. But if you haven't
read any Ellroy before, just pick up the first one that comes to hand,
and (having just re-read it last week), LA Confidential is one of his
better ones. Oh, and don't let yourself be confused by the fact that
events in the book follow a significantly different course to those in
the film!
Brian Duguid brian....@iname.removethis.com
Please remove anti-spam text from eMail address to reply
http://www.hyperreal.org/zines/est/
http://www.esophagus.com/test-dept/
Stu Bell
Contains spoilers
> n...@kmount.spamblock.globalnet.co.uk (Erik M) wrote:
>
>
> Is it just me, or did anyone else think the ending a total let down?
> Personally, I felt that the film deserved better than to descend into
> a mass shoot-em-up just for the sake of wrapping everything up neatly,
> especially since we have seen this ending so many times before (Devil
> in a Blue Dress, anyone?).
I'm going to stick my neck out and be one of the only people in the
country to say I didn't really like the movie all that much. I felt
several times that when it came to crucial plot points, for instance the
discovery of Leland Meeks' body, the filmmakers had no confidence in the
intelligence of the viewer, and had to ram the points home with their
anooying little flash-back inserts, just to remind you exactly what was
going on. But unlike the average American, I could remember who people
were and what was going on, so it just annoyed me abit. cf Spacey's
Fleur de Lys discovery.
Among the other reasons I felt it was sloppy:
- IMO filmmakers should only use a narrator if he/she is going add some
sort of coherence and cohesion to the story - in this case, though,
DeVito was just used to explain plot points where they were too lazy to
do so another way.
- It was becoming more and more obvious that Dudley would be the villain
because he virtually dropped out of the action. One minute he's a major
character and then no sign of him... In the back of the viewers mind,
they know that next time he shows up it's going to be for the big payoff.
I also felt that in a way, despite what Curtis Hanson has said about not
wanting to trade off his actors' reputations, that he wanted us to think
Spacey was going to be the baddy, again. A couple of times I really
felt they were pushing a little too hard, I dunno though, I could be
imagining it.
- This film clearly wanted to be Chinatown, right down to the score. I
know Chinatown itself used a very "old style" score, but I thought this
movie needed something else. And Curtis Hanson is not Roman Polanski.
- Guy Pearce. Not convincing. I know that was probably because of me
taking my own preconceptions into the cinema with me, but even so, I
didn't think of Farmer Hoggett every time James Cromwell came on, or
think of Vicki Vale every time Kim Basinger appeared, so maybe there is
something to it...
- I definitely agree about the ending. I think Curtis Hanson really
wanted to make an action film...
- Why did it take them so long to go see the DA after the actor turned
up dead?
Just my thoughts. I mean, it wasn't a bad film next to, say, Contact,
but after reading nothing but five-star reviews, I didn't expect it to be
so pedestrian. Although having said that, Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger
were both fantastic.
STB
Brian Duguid
Ross Galvin x5032 <ukc...@cambridge.simoco.com> wrote:
[still more spoilers in here ...]
>First let me say I enjoyed the film but had my reservations about the end,
>not the shoot out, but the proper end as it were. All through the film
>Guy Pearce's character is whiter than white
I thought one of the major points of the Bloody Christmas events,
apart from an opportunity to contrast the three main characters'
reactions, was to establish Ed Exley, Pearce's character, as being
ruthlessly ambitious. Certainly, this reflects the novel, where the
tension between Exley's desire to "do the right thing" and to advance
his own position is drawn out at much greater length.
>I'm not familier with James Ellroys books, however from the snippets quoted
>in various reviews I get the feeling they are pretty (pump)action
>packed already.
Umm, not really. The violence is in places far more explicit and
repulsive than the film offered, but generally the action is dealt
with in a few paragraphs, with the rest being dense plot and character
exposition. And Ellroy's LA Confidential resolves neither the entire
plot nor the Exley / Bud White antagonism in the neat action-packed
ways that the film does.
Ross Galvin x5032
Brian Duguid wrote:
> Ross Galvin x5032 <ukc...@cambridge.simoco.com> wrote:
> [still more spoilers in here ...]
>
> >Guy Pearce's character is whiter than white
>
> I thought one of the major points of the Bloody Christmas events,
> apart from an opportunity to contrast the three main characters'
> reactions, was to establish Ed Exley, Pearce's character, as being
> ruthlessly ambitious.
I was never fully convinced of this, I felt he was motivated more
by a strong moral code rather than blatant ambition, but then he
did want to live up to or indeed outstrip his father reputation,
my god one of the oldest cliches in the book, or should I say film.
> Umm, not really. The violence is in places far more explicit and
> repulsive than the film offered, but generally the action is dealt
> with in a few paragraphs, with the rest being dense plot and character
> exposition. And Ellroy's LA Confidential resolves neither the entire
> plot nor the Exley / Bud White antagonism in the neat action-packed
> ways that the film does.
So what you are really saying is <gasp> that the book is better than the
film :-) Probably the most damning criticism of any book to film
conversion. I think you can say that one good thing to come out of
the film is that people may well hunt down some of his novels, I know
I will.
Thanks
Ross
--
Email : Ross....@cambridge.simoco.com
Dr Ross Galvin, Simoco Europe,
P.O. Box 24, St. Andrews Road Tel : 01223 585032
Cambridge, CB4 1DP, U.K. Fax : 01223 314812
Erik M
spoiler space;
Brian Duguid sez:
>It's a 4-part quartet: The Black Dahlia; The Big Nowhere; LA
>Confidential; White Jazz. Several characters recur throughout, and
>several make appearances in Ellroy's other novels e.g. Dick Contino's
>Blues (short stories) and, I think, Clandestine. They are definitely
>best read in the right order - in particular it's good to read White
>Jazz after LA Confidential (as I'm about to do) because it gives two
>quite different viewpoints on a major character.
<SNIP>
Thanks for the info.
I also found the resolution of the film to be satisfactory, but, to
clarify what I was trying to say, the shoot out preceding this still
seemed to me to be practically irrelevant - just a bit of mindless
action. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it definitely
lessened the impact of the film, in my eyes.
Incidentally, I found it amusing that the media were so suprised at
the fact that two of the leading men were Australian, and yet pulled
off perfect American accents, as though constant exposure to U.S.
films and T.V. shouldn't mean that practically anyone can do a decent
U.S. accent these days.
Erik M.