Director: Curtis Hanson
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Have I Seen It Before: Yes. It felt like one of those negotiations I had to launch into in the 1990s to retrieve R-rated movies from the powers that B. As scandalous as the film presents itself to be, I’m imagining my 13-year-old self felt like he was sold a false bill of goods.
Did I Like It: This time I loved it. There’s probably not much more to say about the Hanson’s direction, Ellroy’s story designed to be an almost perfect tension-delivery machine, or even the performances. I’m perfectly fine to hear that the one takeaway people might have from this review that I never thought I’d watch a movie with Kevin Spacey and eventually forget that I’m having to watch Kevin Spacey. The man is probably deeply terrible, and I’m imagining that American Beauty (1999) is still made of nuclear levels of discomfort, but there was definitely a time where he had a watchable quality.
But what I would really like to talk about it Jerry Goldsmith’s score. I didn’t even need to see his name in the credits to know he was conducting. It might be his last great score*, and it seems to celebrate all of his disparate works. There’s more than a little bit of Chinatown (1974), and that seems to be a natural reference point. But there’s plenty of other Golsmith-esque flourishes in there, culminating in a celebration of his whole career. A bit of Alien (1979)** is thrown in there, along with some of his larger orchestral themes, and even a few notes from his later synth-heavy scores. The score album of this one is quickly going to be on regular rotation. That much is for certain.
*All due apologies to Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), a solid score that suffers from trying to copy Star Trek: First Contact (1996) a bit too closely, and no apologies to Star Trek Nemesis (2002), because you know what you did.
**When White (Crowe) digs around in the cellar, you’ll hear it, too.