39,327
edits
L.A. Confidential: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (revise quote template spacing) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 25:
* [[Celebrity Impersonator]]: Played straight with the various whores in Pierce Patchett's stable.
** Also subverted as noted below under [[Reality Is Unrealistic]], when {{spoiler|Ed Exley mistakes the real Lana Turner for a lookalike hooker}}.
* [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]]: Lynn's wardrobe reflects a lot about her character. She is a [[Woman in Black]] when she first meets Bud and is a suspect in Susan Lefferts' death, she wears soft greens and blues during her domestic scenes with Bud, she wears all [[Woman in White|white]] during the scene where she seduces Ed, and when she shows up at the end ready to leave for Arizona, she's dressed in a bright yellow amid the sea of blue at Ed's ceremony.
* [[Composite Character]]: Matt Reynolds is a combination of Tammy Reynolds and Rock Rockwell (the kids Jack busts for smoking pot in the beginning) and Billy Dieterling (tragic young gay actor, whose life is ruined by one of the main detectives - Jack in the movie, Ed in the book).
* [[Conversation Casualty]]: {{spoiler|Dudley Smith}} shoots {{spoiler|Jack Vincennes}} mid-conversation without so much as a word of warning.
Line 36:
* [[Dies Wide Open]]: {{spoiler|Jack Vincennes}}
** Subverted with {{spoiler|Matt Reynolds}} - whose hooded stare got a great close up and made such a terrific silent accusation against {{spoiler|Jack Vincennes}} when he found the body.
* [[Dirty Cop]]: Every variation imaginable is in here somewhere.
* [[Distinguishing Mark]]: A mother cannot initially identify her daughter at the morgue due to the girl's extensive plastic surgery. The coroner prompts her with Detective Lieutenant Exley and Officer Bud White hanging on her every word:
{{quote|'''Coroner''': Mrs. Lefferts, does your daughter have any distinguishing marks?
'''Mrs. Lefferts''': She has a birthmark on her hip. It's her. My baby! }}
** The scene won the [http://www.skinema.com/Skinnies1998.html 1998 Skinny Award] for "Best birthmark used to further the plot".
* [[Doorstopper]]
* [[Dumb Muscle]]: Bud, or at least what Exley initially thinks of him.
** More importantly, what {{spoiler|Dudley Smith}} thinks of White and why he drags him into his scheme. It's one of his few, but vital, mistakes.
Line 69:
* [[Hidden Depths]]: The three main cops - Bud, Jack and Ed - in different ways. Also Lynn, who just wants to get out of the hooker life and move back to Arizona to open a dress shop.
* [[High Altitude Interrogation]]: How Bud gets his answers from Ellis Loew in the movie.
* [[High
* [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold]]: Lynn Bracken.
* [[Horrible Hollywood]]
Line 78:
* [[Important Haircut]]: Lynn in the end cuts her hair to show her rejection of her former life.
* [[I Never Said It Was Poison]]: "Vincennes mentioned a suspect he was hunting down. Rollo Tomasi?"
* [[Ironic Echo]]: Inez Soto's {{spoiler|confession that she lied to Ed about the Nite Owl suspects - ''"You want to know what the big lie is? You and your precious 'absolute justice'."'' - is an echo of Ed's most sacred tenet.}}
** "Rollo Tomasi" in the movie.
** "Would you be willing to shoot a hardened criminal in the back"?
Line 86:
* [[The Killer Becomes the Killed]]
* [[Knight in Sour Armor]]: Ed becomes this by the end of the book.
* [[Living Lie Detector]]: Ed, in the book more than the movie.
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: The already complicated movie contains maybe 20% of the book's story.
* [[Lolicon]]: Blink and you'll miss her, but one of the lookalike whores at Pierce Patchett's mansion is made up as little [[Shirley Temple]].
* [[Love Triangle]]: Bud, Lynn, and Ed. Of course, this is [[James Ellroy]] we're talking about. It's not as if this is his first love triangle featuring two cops and a hooker (i.e. ''The Black Dahlia'').
** The book gives us a [[Love Dodecahedron]] between Ed, Bud, Lynn, and Inez Soto. Ed is seeing Inez but sleeping with Lynn, while Bud is seeing Lynn but sleeping with Inez, not to mention the ever-present [[Ho Yay]] / [[Foe Yay]] between Bud and Ed.
* [[The Man Behind the Man]]: {{spoiler|It's Captain Dudley Smith who controls the dirty racket in L.A.}}.
* [[Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot]]: The real reason for The Nite Owl murders. {{spoiler|Officer Dick Stensland had stolen heroin the chief was using for his new racket.}}
* [[Mistaken Confession]]: The Nite Owl suspects. They think the cops are about to bust them for kidnapping and raping Inez Soto, instead of committing the murders at the Nite Owl.
Line 108:
* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]
* [[Pretty in Mink]]: Lana Turner is wearing a white fox wrap in her scene in the movie.
* [[Pyrrhic Victory]]: Ed Exley.
{{quote|'''Lynn''': ''Some men get the world. Others get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona. You're in with the former, but God, I don't envy the blood on your conscience.''}}
* [[Rabid Cop]]: Pretty much everyone, except for Ed (and even he hits it at the end of the movie).
Line 128:
{{quote|'''Bud:''' Jesus fucking Christ!
'''Patchett:''' No, Mr. White, Pierce Moorehouse Patchett. }}
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: To ''[[Chinatown]]''. Even though they both have a completely different cast and crew, both are set in Los Angeles, both were made 40 years after the time period in which they are set, and both feature themes of betrayal, corruption of public institutions and officials, and "neo-noir" values. Oh, and both have scores by [[Jerry Goldsmith]].
* [[Treachery Cover-Up]]
* [[Turn in Your Badge]]: Bud in both the movie and the book, though the movie gives us the traditional scene.
Line 135:
* [[Vigilante Execution]]: In the movie, but not the book, {{spoiler|Ed executes Dudley Smith, rather than let him be arrested}}.
* [[Villain with Good Publicity]]
* [[Wife-Basher Basher]]: Bud White. He's introduced kicking the crap out of a wife-beater, tying him to his porch with Christmas tree lights to wait for the patrol car to bring him in. Later, to scare the location of a kidnapped and repeatedly raped teenage girl out of the alleged Nite Owl suspects, he rips a solid oak chair in half with his bare hands in front of them and THEN shoves a gun in the face of one of the cowards and played [[False Roulette]] (probably) with him. He continues to play the trope arrow-straight {{spoiler|until he hits Lynn when he finds out she slept with Exley. This was major [[Heroic BSOD]] on his part, however.}}
* [["Well Done, Son" Guy]]: In the book, Exley would just about bend over backwards to win his father's approval. {{spoiler|Well, until he learns his father let a child-killing psychopath walk because it was his best friend's son, and covered it up.}}
* [[Wham! Line]]: From the book - {{spoiler|"Captain Dudley Liam Smith for the Nite Owl."}}. It's not that we didn't know who the villain was (because if you read the book, the first chapter clues you in), it's that Ed saying it aloud is so powerful. He's about to cross the only man on earth more dangerous than he is.
** {{spoiler|"Rollo Tomasi"}}.
| |||