Movie Review: No 79. LA Confidential

It”s been over a month since I finished watching ‘LA Confidential’ and probably more than 2 or 3 months since I started watching it.

I don’t know what it is about this film that made me so uninspired to continue with it. Given that I really enjoyed ‘The Usual Suspects‘, and this film is quite similar to that (Rolo Thomasi/Kaiser Soze, it’s all the same to me), it may just be down to a simple case of timing.

Then again, there may be a more decisive factor at play.

You see, I’m getting mighty tired of the “boy movie” slant of this Top 100. I don’t mean to be sexist, and I love a good action movie as much as the next gal, but I think we can all agree there are some fundamental differences between men and women in general, and one of them has got to be their taste in movies.

I don’t even need to tell you that this movie dealt with gangsters. You’d swear they were on every street corner with the kind of press they get in the imdb Top 100 list!

Look, this movie isn’t bad. Not at all. It’s a decent movie with a decent amount of drama, enough good cop/bad cop action to fuel a whole season of ‘Law & Order: SVU’, and plenty of sex and violence…

Yawn.

I know I have what some might call a “unique” taste in movies, but whenever I see Danny DeVito I just desperately want to watch ‘Batman Returns’ again to remind myself of why I think he’s so amazing.

If nothing else, I’ll applaud this film for its use of Aussie actors. What is it about Aussie actors that renders them so infectious? You know, a kind of “if you hire one, you hire ’em all” situation. In this case, Rusty and Guy are amazingly well-cast; Rusty because he plays (oh-so-convincingly) a guy with anger management issues, and Guy? Well, Guy just looks like my Future Husband so he can star in whichever movies he likes 🙂 Then there’s Simon Bakey-Baker who does a grand old job of acting completely stupid. Suddenly ANZ does not seem the soundest investment choice…

I don’t know what it is about this movie that put me off. In many ways it’s no different to a lot of the films I’ve seen from the imdb list already. But then, maybe that’s the problem? Perhaps if I’d watched it at a different time, in a different order, I’d feel less consumed with boredom.

Having been thoroughly bitten by the zombie bug this past year (TWD OMG!), the one thing I did enjoy in this film was the shoot-out at the end. Those bad dudes just kept coming, didn’t they? Zombie Apocalypse material for sure.

I guess what I’m saying is: you really need to watch, and judge, this movie for yourself. More than ever before I feel completely unprepared to rate and review it. I’ve suffered a minor movie meltdown and I feel incapable of rendering an impartial stance.

WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE, JUST ONCE,  LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER?

That’s all I’m asking.

6.5 pumpkins.

Have you seen ‘LA Confidential’? Do you agree with my review? Let me know in the comments below.