The Nice Guys

In retrospect, releasing an R-rated buddy action movie at the beginning of the summer blockbuster season – amidst comic book superhero movies and children’s animated films – was probably not a good idea. The Nice Guys (2016), Shane Black’s throwback to a bygone era, has performed unremarkably. With this and the lackluster returns from his previous buddy action movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), it is both unfortunate and obvious that mainstream movie-going audiences no longer want to see the brand of violently comedic crime movies Black helped popularize in the 1980s and 1990s. They want movies that put an emphasis on sitcom-style comedy, eclipsed by sanitized action, and starring popular comedians like Kevin Hart (Ride Along) or Melissa McCarthy (The Heat).

I suppose one could see the writing on the wall with the massive success of the Rush Hour movies. Black even seemed to acknowledge this with Iron Man 3 (2013) where he had to disguise his trademark motifs under the guise of the Comic Book Superhero genre. Black’s unique stamp on beloved material angered Marvel fans, a poisonous dose of bad luck that followed him into The Nice Guys. This is a shame because for fans of R-rated buddy action movies, The Nice Guys is pure cinematic catnip and a reminder of how excellent this genre was and could still be.

Black takes us for a ride to Los Angeles, 1977, the opening credits playing over the funky grooves of “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” by The Temptations, which sets the right tune for the right tone. After adult film star Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio) is killed in a car crash, aging enforcer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) crosses paths with low-rent private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling), the former introducing himself to the latter by way of a verbal and physical warning: “Stop looking for Amelia (Margaret Qualley) by breaking his arm (“When you talk to your doctor, tell him you’ve got a spiral fracture of the right humerus…”).

Two thugs (Beau Knapp and Keith David) are also looking for Amelia and they pay a visit to Healy, trying unsuccessfully to squeeze him for information. It is a nicely written confrontation between dangerous men, quintessentially Shane Black as Healy talks his way out of trouble…with the help of a shotgun. He realizes that his case is somehow related to March’s and proposes they team up. The price is right for March – $400 – for the entire run of the case. Their investigation takes our heroes through the seedy underbelly of smog-infested L.A.

Russell Crowe hasn’t looked this loose and relaxed in a role in years as he looks like he’s having a blast playing a hired goon who actually gives a shit. Putting on weight for the role, Crowe uses his hulking frame and imposing presence effectively. His performance is the real revelation of this film as he demonstrates an unexpected penchant gift for comedy, displaying spot-on comic timing and a real knack for delivering Black’s stylized dialogue.

Ryan Gosling plays the private investigator that, unlike Crowe’s Healy, doesn’t give a shit anymore, hasn’t since the tragic death of his wife. He does easy jobs for chump change, barely supporting him and his daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice). Over the course of their investigation, he does a complete 180 degrees and becomes personally invested, especially when their lives are repeatedly put in danger. March isn’t too bright; Black establishes this early on in a funny, throwaway bit of business that sees the private eye badly slitting his wrist trying to break into a bar. Gosling plays March as a lovable goofball who is part cowardly lion, throwing up whenever he stumbles across a dead body.

Not surprisingly – given what kind of film this is – the banter between Crowe and Gosling is a lot of fun to watch. Initially, their partnership is an antagonistic one but they soon bond not only saving each other’s lives but are given a moment where they reveal personal details about themselves. This is an important element, providing insight into their characters and what motivates them so that we, in turn, become invested in their journey.

With The Nice Guys, Black takes us back to the hedonistic ‘70s a time when people smoked everywhere, did drugs openly and pornos flaunted publicly on marquees downtown. This is particularly evident in a wild party that Healy and March crash at porn king Sid Shattack’s sprawling mansion…where many of the guests are also naked. Up to this point, the film had relegated its period trappings to the background but this scene allows Black to fully immerse us in a specific time and place. The soundtrack is interspersed with popular period tunes (featuring the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire, Bee Gees, and Kool & The Gang) with a score by David Buckley and John Ottman that evokes ‘70s crime shows like The Rockford Files (which is even referenced in the film).

Black expertly juxtaposes laugh out loud moments with jarring jolts of bloody violence that is the kind of darkly comic territory for which he is known. He doesn’t dwell on the more gruesome aspects like Quentin Tarantino does in many of his films, rather uses it to punctuate a given scene for a thrill or a laugh. Much like the bad guys in a buddy action comedy like Midnight Run (1988), the heavies in The Nice Guys have gravitas and are a legitimate threat to the heroes. Black’s not afraid to have a serious moment or two with real emotional weight, which raises the stakes for our heroes – and the moviegoer – in a big way.

With a Black movie you know what you’re going to get: it will be set during Christmastime and it will feature a mismatched duo consisting of an older burnout clearly too old for this shit and a younger, more energetic partner with serious issues. They will be saddled with a wise-beyond-their-years child, and come in conflict with an infallibly polite, well-dressed sadistic henchman that enforces the will of a powerful, older white man. Lethal Weapon (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), and so on adhere to this formula (with some variations). All of these elements combined together make him a unique voice within the studio system.

After finishing the screenplay for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and unable to get anyone to read it, Shane Black put it aside and began working on a new script idea in 2001 with his writing partner Anthony Bagarozzi about detectives in Los Angeles. They would each write a scene and show the other what they had written. Over time, it became apparent that they were writing an homage to classic detective novels they admired.

Originally, The Nice Guys was intended to be a feature film set in contemporary L.A. When Black couldn’t drum up any interest he changed it to a television show that CBS and HBO both passed on. In regards to the former, Black said, “The Standards and Practices were just going to kill us. They were so egregiously offended by even the most minor edginess.” Finally, it reverted back to a feature film but with Black deciding to set it in the 1970s. This change came from his fondness for the era: “The Hollywood sign was crumbling, and nobody was bothering to fix it. L.A. was this sort of Sodom and Gomorrah-type smog-laden porn pit. For the setting of a detective story, how much better can you do?”

Black insisted on directing the script himself and, at the time, nobody was interested until the success of Iron Man 3. He reunited with producer Joel Silver in 2010 and he shopped the script around Hollywood. Black recalls one studio executive telling him, “I’m sorry. We’re just not doing period pieces.” The writer realized that the executive “probably flipped through it and saw it was a film noir and thought it was set in the ‘40s.” Silver ended up raising the $50 million budget and sold the distribution rights to Warner Bros.

The producer showed the script to Ryan Gosling who, as it turned out, was a big fan of The Monster Squad (1987), a movie that he loved from his childhood, and that Black had co-written. He loved The Nice Guys script and agreed to star in it. Black wanted to cast Russell Crowe opposite Gosling but the actor wasn’t initially wasn’t interested. Black flew to Australia to pitch Crowe in person. The actor offered him a drink and Black, who was sober after several years of hard-partying, replied, “Oh, you know, you have one drink, and the next thing you know you’re in handcuffs.” Crowe remembers, “I thought, ‘Hmmm, I like this guy. He’s sharp.” What closed the deal was when Black mentioned that Gosling was attached to the project. Crowe had wanted to work with him for some time and agreed to do the film.

Black and producer Joel Silver probably felt that teaming up Crowe and Gosling would result in box office gold, but failed to realize that the former is no longer an A-list leading man, appearing in supporting roles in mainstream fare like Man of Steel (2013), while the latter is no longer a teen heartthrob, having diversified in recent years, appearing in art house fare like Blue Valentine (2010) or commercial flops like Gangster Squad (2013). While this may have done the film’s commercial prospect no favors, they both do fantastic work in The Nice Guys.

Ultimately, what has doomed the film commercially was not its release date (although, that didn’t help) but rather its audience – an older demographic that doesn’t go out to the movies very often and is instead content to wait for them to show up on home video. Black doesn’t have the same kind of commercial sensibilities as other directors of his previous material, like Richard Donner, Tony Scott or even Renny Harlin, who knew how to translate his screenplays into box office profit. The Nice Guys will probably be rediscovered by its intended audience on home video thus transforming it into a cult film with a dedicated following and “discovered” by the youth market when they finally age out of it.

SOURCES

Baron, Zach. “Why Shane Black’s The Nice Guys was 15 Years in the Making.” GQ. May 16, 2016.

Svetkey, Benjamin. “Lethal Weapon Wunderkind (and Former Party Boy) Shane Black is Back…and Still Looking for Action.” The Hollywood Reporter. May 13, 2016.

American Gangster

For a film that was a critical and commercial success, I’m surprised that American Gangster (2007) isn’t talked about more or revered by film buffs as much as it should. The general consensus seems to be that it’s a good film but not a great one. Ridley’s Scott’s film is an epic depiction of the rise of Frank Lucas, from right-hand man of Harlem gangster “Bumpy” Johnson to major league smuggler of heroin from Vietnam to the United States during the war via the bodies of dead soldiers on American service planes. He was eventually detained by a task force led by Newark police detective Richie Roberts.

Based very loosely on a New York magazine article about Lucas, the production got off to a rocky start when Ridley Scott and Brian De Palma briefly flirted with directing Steve Zaillian’s screenplay before the studio hired Antoine Fuqua with Denzel Washington and Benicio del Toro to star as Lucas and Roberts respectively. Four weeks before the beginning of principal photography, Fuqua was fired over budgetary concerns and creative differences. The production was shut down for a few months and was then revived with Scott directing and Russell Crowe replacing Del Toro. American Gangster was released to much acclaim but, oddly enough, has become something of an overlooked film among Scott’s body of work.

We meet Frank Lucas (Washington) in 1968 as Bumpy’s (Clarence Williams III) ruthless enforcer. He teaches Frank about “the pride of ownership,” and “personal service” – two things that are missing from the stores in the neighborhood. He points out that the middle-men have been pushed out and store owners buy straight from the manufacturer. “There’s no one in charge,” Bumpy says before dying. Frank remembers these words and applies them with merciless efficiency when he takes over Bumpy’s turf and then others.

Meanwhile, Richie (Crowe) is going to school to become a lawyer and serving subpoenas with his partner Javier Rivera (John Ortiz) during a memorable scene where they deliver one to a very resistant man played by character actor extraordinaire Kevin Corrigan. Richie is one of those cops dedicated to the job, often to the detriment of his personal life, and much to the chagrin of his wife (Carla Gugino) and son. He goes on gut instinct and is honest to the point of making himself a pariah within the department. He refuses to exploit the system unlike other corrupt cops such as Nick Trupo (Josh Brolin) who takes dope he seizes from busts and then sells it back to other criminals.

Applying Bumpy’s advice of going straight to the source, Frank travels to Vietnam, and, with his U.S. military contact (Roger Guenveur Smith), a lot of money, and a ton of confidence, he meets with a local warlord (Ric Young) and deals with him directly. This is the start of a very profitable drug empire back in Harlem, but when his partner overdoses on some of Frank’s heroin, Richie makes it his mission in life to find out who is supplying it and taking them down. To do so, his boss (Ted Levine) gives him the freedom to assemble his own taskforce of cops that are honest and trustworthy.

Denzel Washington is excellent as a charismatic drug kingpin that applies his mentor’s dying advice with staggeringly profitable results. He’s cool, collected and always in control as evident in the memorable scene where he openly challenges a rival gangster (Idris Elba) with a smile but an intensity that is conveyed with a look that is all icy determination. This teaser achieves its pay off later on when he shoots said gangster in the head in broad daylight. It not only shows the neighborhood that he means business but also his family members that are now part of his burgeoning empire. As the film progresses, Washington expertly shows how the pressure of running a big drug organization gets to Frank, especially when those close to him make costly mistakes, or when the mafia, represented by Armand Assante’s smooth-talking mobster, voices their displeasure with him stealing away some of their action.

Russell Crowe certainly matches Washington for intensity and adds an aspect of sadness when it comes to Richie’s personal life, which is a shambles – what’s left of it anyways. Much like the cop protagonists in Michael Mann’s films, his job is what defines him. Crowe is also very good at portraying an honest cop without making him seem naïve or stupid. Early on, we get a good idea of just how honest Richie is when he refuses to lie for his partner in an engrossing scene that takes place in the back of ambulance where John Ortiz attacks the scene with the wild-eyed desperation befitting his junkie character that has been ostracized by his fellow cops because of his partner’s honest-to-a-fault approach. Ortiz is a sweaty mess and plays well off of Crowe’s visibly upset cop. We’re not quite sure why Richie refuses to go the route of cops like Trupo but there is no question about his determination to fight crime even if it alienates him from his fellow officers.

We don’t see Crowe and Washington share a scene together until the end when Frank is in custody and Richie convinces him to rat out Italian mobsters and corrupt cops. Both men play it low-key but the intensity is still there, bubbling just under the surface and it is great to see two powerful actors go at it in the same room.

For such a long film (theatrical cut: 158 minutes / extended cut: 176 minutes), Scott keeps things moving with a fascinating story populated by engrossing performances by a star-studded cast chock full of solid character actors the likes we haven’t seen since Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995). As a result, you have likes of Idris Elba, Norman Reedus and Cuba Gooding Jr. in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it parts. There are also contemporary rappers Common, RZA and T.I. popping up in minor but significant roles with Common demonstrating decent acting chops as he holds his own against a veteran actor like Denzel Washington. The late-great Ruby Dee plays Frank’s elderly mother while utility character actors like John Hawkes show up as one of Richie’s trusted crew, Roger Guenveur Smith as Frank’s army connection in Vietnam, and Ruben Santiago-Hudson as Frank’s long-time personal driver. They all turn in solid, unassuming performances, often in the background of scenes but nonetheless providing top-notch support to Crowe and Washington.

The attention to period detail and music is incredible – exactly what you’d expect from a meticulous filmmaker like Ridley Scott – from a flawless recreation of late ‘60s era Harlem to the sweaty, crowded streets of Vietnam and its lush jungles. Scott immerses us in this specific time and place, transporting us there with the atmospheric cinematography of Harris Savides (Zodiac) and a soundtrack populated by the likes of blues and soul musicians such as Bobby Womack, Sam and Dave, and John Lee Hooker, among others. Scott is at his finest during the brilliantly orchestrated climax of the systematic dissolving of Frank’s empire that begins with a chaotic, intense shoot-out at one his drug dens, culminating in Richie waiting for him outside of the church he attends with his mother (Ruby Dee) every Sunday.

Scott wisely doesn’t try to ape the intensity of The French Connection’s (1971) hand-held camerawork or the talky density of Prince of the City (1981) but opts for his own straightforward approach to the material, letting Frank’s story and Richie’s determination to stop him to propel the narrative. With the help of Zaillian’s script, Scott deftly juggles the parallel trajectories of Frank and Richie, showing how their personal and professional lives bleed together, impacting one another. The refusal to go for an overtly flashy style may be why American Gangster isn’t remembers as fondly as the aforementioned The French Connection or Scarface (1983) but it deserves a place among those classics for the performances alone.

American Gangster may not say anything new about crime in America, adhering to the tried and true rise and fall formula of most gangster stories. It did, however, reinforce Scott’s deftness at tackling different kinds of genres. He doesn’t redefine the gangster genre and make it his own like Stanley Kubrick did – that’s not his endgame – he is more interested in telling an entertaining and engaging story very well. It may not have flashy style or instantly quotable dialogue, but that doesn’t make it a lesser film – just a different one. If that sounds like a backhanded compliment it isn’t meant to be one. American Gangster is mythic filmmaking at its finest.

L.A. Confidential

Prolific crime novelist James Ellroy has only had three of his books adapted into films (Blood on the Moon, L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia) while other novels continue to languish in development hell. On the surface, this is baffling as they are chock full of memorable characters, colorful period dialogue and engrossing mysteries at their heart. Dig deeper and it becomes readily apparent why his novels have largely failed to go into production; they feature large casts of characters, each with their own subplots pivotal to the main story. Additionally, the period dialogue is sometimes raw with racial epitaphs, and his lengthy tomes are quite plot heavy.

Where does a screenwriter begin in tackling one of Ellroy’s novels?

Screenwriter Brian Helgeland and director Curtis Hanson found a way with their adaptation of L.A. Confidential (1997), a sprawling epic that was part of Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet, a series of novels set in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles, a universe occupied by several recurring characters, and the sordid crimes they sought to stomp out in their city. It wasn’t easy as the two men shopped their passion project around a Hollywood wary of a period neo-noir much like the women of Ellroy’s world were wary of the johns they met on a nightly basis. It starred two then-unknown Australian actors, Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe. Fortunately, Warner Bros. took a chance and the gamble paid off with a film that managed to distill the essence of Ellroy’s novel without gutting it completely. L.A. Confidential performed well at the box office ($126 million), it was a critical darling and an awards magnet, winning two Oscars for Best Supporting Actress (Kim Basinger) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson).

We are introduced to three police officers. Bud White (Russell Crowe) uses strong-arm tactics to get the job done, especially when it comes to men that are violent towards women. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) stages busts with Hollywood actors and actresses for tabloid journalist Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) and is the technical advisor on the Dragnet-esque television show Badge of Honor. Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is by the book to a fault and has plenty of ambition to burn. As his commanding officer Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) tells him, “You have the eye for human weakness but not the stomach.”

These three men each have their own respective beats that they patrol, but are brought together with their involvement in “Bloody Christmas,” which saw several cops beat on six Mexicans in custody accused of assaulting two police officers. Their careers are shaken up in the aftermath, but get a chance at redemption courtesy of the Nite Owl Massacre, a coffee shop shoot-out that saw six people brutally murdered. What appears initially to be an open and shut case involves aspects of police corruption and a high-end escort service with prostitutes surgically altered to resemble famous movie stars, chief among them Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger) who looks like Veronica Lake. For Bud, the case is a chance to prove to himself and others that he is more than an enforcer for Dudley. For Jack, it’s a chance to get back to why he became a cop in the first place. For Ed, it’s a chance to prove himself and get out from under the shadow of his father, a legendary Los Angeles Police Department detective.

Known mostly for unsuccessful genre movies like The Quick and the Dead (1995) and Virtuosity (1995), L.A. Confidential put Russell Crowe firmly on the A-list. He brings the requisite physicality necessary for Bud White with a ferocity and an intensity that is riveting to watch. Over the course of the film he does an excellent job of conveying Bud’s change of heart as he begins to question his reputation as hired muscle and uses his brains when he becomes embroiled in the Nite Owl case. His romantic involvement with Lynn also shows a romantic, more vulnerable side, which comes as a pleasant surprise.

Kevin Spacey is well cast as the publicity-seeking cop who would probably trade places with the celebrities he busts on a regular basis. Jack loves the attention that his technical advisor gig gets him and loves hobnobbing with movie stars. However, early on, Spacey hints at a dissatisfaction that exists in Jack’s life. He’s tired of staging pot busts for Sid’s tabloid rag and begins to yearn for the more substantial police work he used to do. This is encapsulated in a nice, reflective moment Jack has during a quiet interlude in a bar when he stares long and hard at his latest payoff and himself in the mirror.

Guy Pearce has the toughest role as he plays a largely unlikeable character for most of the film. Ed is a prissy bureaucrat in a cop’s uniform. He’s a political animal not afraid to sell out his fellow officers to further his own career. This brings him in direct conflict with Bud who is everything Ed is not. Pearce does a nice job of showing how Ed changes as the deeper he gets into the Nite Owl case the more dirt he gets on his hands and blood on his face. The actor’s best moment comes in the scene with Spacey where Ed explains to Jack why he became a cop. He also admits to losing sight of why he became one as does Jack (Spacey’s sad expression at this moment is particularly affecting). It’s a nice little moment between these two characters that provide personal motivation for their continued involvement in the Nite Owl case.

Kim Basinger is an actress with limited range and I’ve always felt that she was somewhat miscast as Lynn Bracken and that someone like Jennifer Connelly, with her experience in period movies like The Rocketeer (1991) and Mulholland Falls (1996), would have been a much better choice. Basinger certainly looks the part, but lacks the dramatic chops to pull off the role convincingly except for a scene where Lynn lets Bud in past the prostitute as movie star façade to her personal bedroom where Hanson provides us with visual cues to her small-town past. Lynn sits on her bed and for a moment she doesn’t look glamorous, but someone who has been playing a role for too long and is tired. Basinger achieves an aching vulnerability that is impressive and one wishes that the rest of her performance was as good as this scene.

Hanson surrounds his three lead actors with a rock solid supporting cast. James Cromwell is perfectly cast as the fearsome Dudley Smith, the Irish cop that employs brutal and unorthodox methods to enforce the law. David Strathairn’s Pierce Patchett is a cool as they come millionaire and power player with a secret side. Danny DeVito gets a juicy role as sleazy mudraker Sid Hudgens, a man who didn’t uncover or create a scandal he couldn’t exploit.

Hanson wisely hired cinematographer extraordinaire Dante Spinotti (Heat) to capture a bygone era on film and he creates a warm look in the day scenes and a shadowy one at night, but without overdoing it to the point of slavish film noir homage. There are many standout sequences in L.A. Confidential, chief among them a virtuoso sequence where Ed masterfully questions three men suspected of the Nite Owl Massacre, going back and forth, playing them against each other. This sequence is not only wonderfully edited, but also well-acted by Pearce who starts off grilling the three men thinking that they did it, but when one of them spills his guts, realizes that they are guilty of a completely different crime. This sequence also deepens the mystery as the killers are still at large and their motives unknown.

Helgeland and Hanson’s screenplay does an excellent job of gradually building narrative momentum. It introduces the three main protagonists right off the bat with scenes that show their distinctive approaches to police work, which informs their character. Over the course of the film we learn more about them from how they act and what they do. The screenwriters also excel at raising the stakes the deeper Bud, Ed and Jack go into the Nite Owl case and the more they uncover. One gets a tangible sense of danger that these men are in, which makes the film’s climax that much more exciting.

Filmmaker Curtis Hanson had been a long-standing admirer or Southern California fiction writers like Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and John Fante. He had read half a dozen novels by James Ellroy before he turned his attention to L.A. Confidential. He found himself drawn to the characters and not the plot. “What hooked me on them was that, as I met them, one after the other, I didn’t like them – but as I continued reading, I started to care about them.” Ellroy’s novel also made Hanson think of L.A. and provided him with an opportunity to “set a movie at a point in time when the whole dream of Los Angeles, from that apparently golden era of the ‘20s and ‘30s, was being bulldozed.”

Screenwriter Brian Helgeland was originally signed to Warner Bros. to write a Viking movie with director Uli Edel and then worked on an unproduced modern-day King Arthur story. He was a long-time Ellroy fan and when he heard that the studio had acquired the rights to L.A. Confidential in 1990 as a potential mini-series, he lobbied to write the screenplay. However, Warner Bros. was only talking to well-known writers. When Helgeland finally did get a meeting it was cancelled two days in advance. He found out that Hanson had been hired to direct and met with him while the filmmaker was helming The River Wild (1994). They discovered that not only did they shared a love for Ellroy’s novels, but they also agreed on how to adapt L.A. Confidential into a film. Hanson felt that the key was to “concentrate on the three cops, use them as our tentpoles to hold up the rest of the story and ask what scenes are most important to these guys. Where are the scenes where they play off each other? And how can we bring all their stories together?” He realized that Ellroy’s novels were not “blueprints for movies” because of their many subplots and backstories. He decided to have the characters, not the plot, be their guide because if he and Helgeland approached the adaptation on the plot level they would have “ended up with wall-to-wall exposition.”

The two men worked on the script together for two years with Hanson turning down jobs and Helgeland writing drafts for free. When the studio optioned his book, Ellroy assumed that it would never be made into a film because he designed it to be difficult to adapt and if it was made, he figured that “they would screw it up. But if they do screw it up I am honor-bound to keep my mouth shut because I took the money.” When Hanson and Helgeland finished the seventh draft they showed it to Ellroy. The author had seen Hanson films The Bedroom Window (1987) and Bad Influence (1990) and found him to be “a competent and interesting storyteller,” but wasn’t convinced that his book would be made into a film until he talked to the director.

Warner Bros. didn’t like Hanson’s approach to the script and wanted to condense it into a predictable solo star adventure story. Hanson refused and the studio backed off, suggesting New Regency Productions get involved and handle distribution. Warner Bros. executive Bill Gerber showed the script to Michael Nathanson, CEO of New Regency, which had a deal with the studio. Nathanson loved it, but they had to get owner Arnold Milchan’s approval. Hanson prepared a presentation that consisted of 15 vintage postcards and pictures of L.A. mounted on poster-boards and made his pitch to Milchan. The pictures consisted of orange groves, beaches, tract homes in the San Fernando Valley and the opening of the Hollywood Freeway to symbolize the image of prosperity sold to the public at the time. Then, he showed the darker side of Ellroy’s novel with the cover of scandal rag Confidential and the famous shot of Robert Mitchum coming out of jail after his marijuana bust. He also had photographs of jazz musicians of the time: Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker to represent the music people listened to at the time. Hanson emphasized that the period detail would be in the background and the characters in the foreground. Milchan was impressed with the presentation and agreed to finance the film.

When it came to casting Hanson had seen Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper (1992) and found him “repulsive and scary but captivating.” The actor fit the image Hanson had of Bud White. Like countless other actors, Guy Pearce auditioned and Hanson felt that he was “very much what I had in mind for Ed Exley.” Hanson explained his logic in casting them: “My hope was to replicate my experience of the book. You don’t like any of these characters at first, but the deeper you get into their story, the more you begin to sympathize with them. I didn’t want actors audiences knew and already liked.” At the time, both Australian actors were not well known in North America and Milchan was worried about the lack of movie stars in lead roles.

Regardless, he backed Hanson’s casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and Kevin Spacey. In the case of the latter, Hanson specifically cast the actor against type and told him to think of Dean Martin while in the role. Hanson felt that Jack Vincennes was “a movie star among cops.” Hanson was confident that Spacey “could play the man behind that veneer, the man who also lost his soul.” Once everyone was on board, Hanson gave his cast and crew points and counterpoints to capture L.A. in the 1950s by screening The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), which epitomized the glamorous Hollywood look of Lynn Bracken, In A Lonely Place (1950) to show the ugly side, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) because it was “so rooted in the futuristic 50s: the atomic age,” and The Line-Up (1958) for the “lean and efficient style.” Hanson and Spinotti agreed that L.A. Confidential would be shot widescreen and watched two Cinemascope films of the period: Douglas Sirk’s The Tarnished Angels (1957) and Vincente Minelli’s Some Came Running (1958). However, Hanson didn’t want the film to be an exercise in nostalgia and had Spinotti shoot it like a contemporary film and use more naturalistic lighting.

Before filming took place, Hanson brought Crowe and Pearce to L.A. for two months and immersed them in the city and the time period. He also got them dialect coaches, showed them vintage police training movies and had them meet with real cops. Pearce found the contemporary police force had changed too much to be useful research material, finding the police movies more valuable “because there was a real sort of stiffness, a woodenness about these people” that he felt Exley had as well. Meanwhile, Crowe studied Sterling Hayden’s performance in Stanley Kubrick’s film noir The Killing (1956). Early on, Crowe and Pearce conducted rehearsals with Helgeland and Hanson, which consisted of them discussing each scene. As other actors were cast, they would join in.

L.A. Confidential received nearly universal praise from the critical community. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, “L.A. Confidential is immersed in the atmosphere and lore of film noir, but it doesn’t seem like a period picture—it believes its noir values and isn’t just using them for decoration.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Mr. Spacey is at his insinuating best, languid and debonair, in a much more offbeat performance than this film could have drawn from a more conventional star. And the two Australian actors, tightly wound Mr. Pearce and fiery, brawny Mr. Crowe, qualify as revelations.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “This is the first film that has truly gotten Ellroy on screen, and, in many ways, it’s a sleeker and more pleasurable experience than his hard-boiled-bebop prose. With its plot that zips and zags like knife slashes, its cynicism stoked to the melting point, the movie brings the thrill of corruption crackingly to life.” Andrew Sarris wrote, “Ms. Basinger’s career has been spectacularly uneven but considerably better and subtler than one would think from the lurid reputation of most of her vehicles. She has never been as good, as sensitive and as moving as she is here as an unusual angel of mercy in her relationships with two of the three protagonists.”

In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Brian Helgeland and Hanson have expertly extracted the essence of the proceedings and boiled them down to a concentrated screen story where appearances are deceptive and nobody gives any information away.” The Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter wrote, “Hanson delivers something ever rarer in film culture, not a new film noir but an old-fashioned total movie, somehow of a single piece.” Finally, the author himself, James Ellroy weighed in on the film: “They preserved the basic integrity of the book and its main themes, which is that everything in Los Angeles during this era of boosterism and yahooism was two-sided and two-faced and put out for cosmetic purposes … Brian and Curtis took a work of fiction that had eight plotlines, reduced those to three, and retained the dramatic force of three men working out their destiny.”

Helgeland and Hanson successfully adapted Ellroy’s novel because they not only understood that the central theme of the L.A. Quartet is the Evil that Men Do, but also how to translate it on film much in the same way he did it in the source material. Older white men conspire to cheat, lie and kill their way into positions of power and in the process ruin countless lives. These are very bad men who hide behind a façade of respectability and commit heinous acts in order maintain control. This is why L.A. Confidential is a much better adaptation than Brian De Palma’s beautiful looking, but ultimately empty take on Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia (2006). It hasn’t stopped people from trying replicate the special alchemy that Helgeland and Hanson created with the likes of Gangster Squad (2013) on the big screen and Frank Darabont’s short-lived T.V. show Mob City. L.A. Confidential the book and the film take us back to the heady days when the LAPD was trying to clean up its act, the city was ambitiously expanding, and the public’s thirst for celebrity scandal was taking off in a big way. These are all background details that flesh out the vivid world they brought to life, populated with fascinatingly flawed characters embroiled in a mystery that will change their lives forever.

SOURCES

Arnold, Gary. “Casting for L.A. Confidential Went in Unexpected Direction.” Washington Times. September 21, 1997.

Chollet, Laurence. “A Movie Made, An Author Happy.” The Record. September 14, 1997.

Mathews, Tom Dewe. “Through A Lens Darkly.” The New York Times. “October 17, 1997.

Seiler, Andy. “They Came From Down Under! And Now They’re Cops!” USA Today. September 19, 1997.

Sragow, Michael. “City of Angles.” Dallas Observer. September 11, 1997.

Taubin, Amy. “Confidentially Speaking: Curtis Hanson Makes a Studio-Indie Hybrid.” Village Voice. September 23, 1997.

Taubin, Amy. “L.A. Lurid.” Sight & Sound. November 1997.

Veniere, James. “Director of L.A. Confidential Hits Stride.” Boston Herald. September 14, 1997.

Man of Steel

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) was a poorly-executed and poorly-received movie that effectively mothballed the Superman franchise for years while Warner Brothers spun its wheels and spent all kinds of money trying to figure out a way to reboot the potentially lucrative series, most infamously with Tim Burton directing and Nicolas Cage set to star as the son of Jor-El. Fortunately, that version never got past the planning stages. Finally, Bryan Singer got a shot with Superman Returns (2006) and instead of restarting the franchise, created a cinematic love letter to Richard Donner’s 1978 movie and pretended that Superman III (1983) and the aforementioned IV never existed. While Singer’s movie performed decently at the box office, it was hardly the blockbuster the studio had hoped for (in relation to its very large budget). In addition, Superman Returns was criticized for not having enough action.

So, the studio went back to the drawing board, this time enlisting the braintrust from the recent Batman movies with Christopher Nolan producing and David S. Goyer tackling the screenplay. To direct, they hired Zack Snyder, fresh from the critical and commercial failure of Sucker Punch (2011), but with comic book credentials thanks to his adaptation of Watchmen (2009). By bringing in these three men, the studio made their intentions pretty clear – to start fresh and that this would not be another bright and shiny Superman movie, but something darker and edgier, that would reflect the times in which it was made.

Right from the get-go, Goyer and Nolan tweak the Superman mythos by expanding the Krypton prologue so that not only is the planet self-destructing, its society is engulfed in a civil war with the insurrectionists led by General Zod (Michael Shannon). Right off, Snyder sets a massive, epic look and tone with frenetic battles and chases as Jor-El (Russell Crowe) evades Zod and races to send his son Kal-El off to Earth. Russell Crowe plays the role that Marlon Brando did so memorably in the ’78 version and brings just the right amount of gravitas to the part. He also brings an emotional weight to offset the overwhelming visual spectacle of Krypton’s destruction, which is an impressive CGI workout as you’ll see in any movie in recent memory.

We are introduced to Kal-El a.k.a. Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) in a striking sequence where he saves a crew on a burning oil rig that is gritty and visceral in its depiction as Snyder places us right in the middle of action so that we can almost feel the heat of the burning flames and get a sense of the dangerous situation. For the first half of Man of Steel, Snyder cuts back in forth from Clark as an adult, drifting from job to job, and showing key moments in Clark’s childhood where he came to terms with and first learned how to use and harness his superpowers as a young boy.

Meanwhile, intrepid reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is investigating a rather large object lodged in ice that’s been buried deep for thousands of years. She meets Clark who is also investigating it (under the auspices as a hired hand for the company that is doing all the grunt work) and they uncover an alien craft that Jor-El had launched many years ago. From it, Clark learns all about where he came from. Eventually, Zod and his cronies arrive on Earth, decked out in outfits that look like they came from the H.R. Giger collection, and call out Clark, threatening to destroy the Earth unless he surrenders to the general. As you would expect, much epic carnage ensues.

Henry Cavill is very good as Kent/Superman. He has a quietly confident presence that allows him to slip into this iconic role rather seamlessly and make it his own. He doesn’t try to play Clark as a bumbling nerd a la Christopher Reeve or earnestly like Brandon Routh, but delivers a more muscular, passionate performance as a young man trying to figure out who he is and his place in the world, which is the predominant theme of the movie. He also does a nice job of conveying the internal conflict that exists within Clark – should he reveal his true nature to the world and risk the lives of those he loves? Clark enjoys a satisfying arc as he learns the importance of sacrifice and doing what is right.

Michael Shannon conveys the right amount of anger and bluster as Zod, a military man with a personal vendetta against Jor-El and, by extension, his son, pursuing the child to Earth. Goyer provides Zod with a very clear and definite motivation. He wants to preserve his race and sees Clark as the key to doing that. Zod is willing to raze the Earth to achieve his goal and believes what he is doing is right. Shannon does a decent job of conveying this conviction with absolute certainty even if his performance involves mostly shouting dramatic speeches and threats.

Do we need yet another origins story, especially for a character as well known as Superman? I think so, but only if it is significantly different from previous efforts, which Man of Steel succeeds in accomplishing. Let’s not forget that we haven’t had a cinematic depiction of Superman’s origins since 1978. I think enough time has passed for a retelling. This new movie expands the depiction of the destruction of Krypton significantly and puts more emphasis on the civil war that is led by Zod, which is interesting as it provides strong motivation for what he does later on.

Kevin Costner and Diane Lane bring a wonderful, earthy, natural quality as Clark’s Earth-bound parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. Costner, in particular, is very good as he imparts to his son values that will serve him later in life, teaching him not to use his powers for personal gain. Early on, Clark is not ready to reveal his powers to the world and is still finding himself as he drifts from job to job. This is a nice touch as it shows how he accrues life experiences. This first half of the movie is the strongest part, especially a heartfelt moment where Ma Kent is called to school because young Clark’s X-ray vision has kicked in (quite an analogy for puberty) for the first time and he’s understandably freaked out. She is able to get him to calm down through the soothing sound of her voice. This scene shows the bond between Clark and his Earth-bound parents and how, over time, he gets used to his powers, which is something that figures significantly in the climactic battle between Superman and Zod. The second half, especially once Zod and his crew start trashing Smallville, gets a bit more problematic, especially some of the choices Superman makes that seem to only make sense in that it allows Snyder and the special effects department to flex their CGI muscles. Furthermore, the battle of Metropolis drags on a little too long. One can only take so much CGI carnage before you get numb to it and it goes from being visually dazzling to so much white noise. That being said, I am willing to overlook these kinds of lapses because Man of Steel is so strong overall.

For those tired of Snyder’s overuse of his trademark ramp-up/ramp-down action sequences, which reached their apex in Sucker Punch, they will be happy to know that he has eschewed that for a more grounded, naturalistic approach while still conveying the epic scale of destruction. For the larger-than-life action sequences, Snyder opts for jittery, hand-held camerawork that creates a grittier vibe than what has been depicted in previous Superman movies, which helps ground the fantastical by placing us right in the thick of the action. The advances in CGI have made the display of Superman’s powers the most believable of any of the movies, especially the sequence where he first learns to fly, which is breathtaking in how it conveys the speed and intensity of what he can do, like when he breaks the sound barrier, depicted in a way that evokes Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983) – something that was sorely lacking from Superman Returns, which featured some dated and dodgy looking flying effects.

The fight sequences are appropriately loud and flashy as we get super-beings beating on each other, smashing through buildings and vehicles, which could so easily have been just another special effects workout scored to Hans Zimmer’s gloriously epic music. While they do drag on for too long, we are emotionally invested in Clark and those close to him because of the groundwork laid down during the first half of the movie as we grew to care about him and his world. It makes one wonder if Nolan’s presence as producer kept Snyder’s tendency to excessive style in check. I have enjoyed parts of Snyder’s past movies, but he always struck me as a talented director in need of the right script and someone to rein him in. This is the first movie of his that I’ve enjoyed all the way through and it is by far the best thing he’s done to date.

Snyder and co. clearly learned from the mistakes that Singer made with Superman Returns and made sure that Man of Steel was distinctly different in look, tone and pretty much everything else. Goyer and Nolan wisely reboots the franchise and amps up the action and the visual spectacle to impressive levels while also managing to get us invested in the characters so that we care about what happens to Superman amidst all the noisy CGI carnage. While it may seem like faint praise considering their quality, this is the best Superman movie since Superman II (1980). After the fanboy love letter that was Singer’s movie, we needed one that finally got away from the Christopher Reeve era and struck out on its own, which Man of Steel does quite impressively. This is no more apparent than the now controversial ending where Superman is faced with a dire moral dilemma. The choice he makes is what has stirred up those that feel Goyer and Nolan have betrayed one of the basic underpinnings of the character, but I think that it gives the movie a bit of complexity, much as was done with Batman in The Dark Knight (2008). It should be interesting to see where the filmmakers take Superman from here with the inevitable sequel.