L.A. Confidential - yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'Twas two years ago at the tender age of 14 when I stubbornly refused to turn in for the night, and my irritated father decided just to watch said film regardless of me being in the room. It made a big impression of me as one of the best and most clever films I had ever seen, which is phenomenal now I watch it again.

For one thing, I can't have understood a word of the script. They all talk in a hyper fast slang, and I'm positive I didn't understand words like "queer" and "hooker" two years back, but oh well...

It further backs up my claim that films based on books can't help being brilliant, because there's already a wealth of material there. Anyway, I'm feeling a bit hyper right now.

I tell you another thing that helps - the characters are all great, repulsive and fantastic by turns - totally human, all with their different takes on the morally grey world they operate in. All three have their heroic and admirable sides (Bud has a real crusade for helping women, Jack is just charming...) and their not so sparkly features. And did you see the character arcs?! Whzooom! Actually, it kept making me think of the Untouchables, with Ed Exley as our Elliot Ness - motivated by a noble cause for justice that slowly evaporates leaving them as bad as the rest. And they've both got a lift shooting.

Jack Vincennes was my favorite at the time. I've got my year 8 maths book to prove it, with a rather sweet pencil drawing on the back. My friends remember him as "him with the strange name", at the time the only fictional American I've ever fallen in love with. And his reaction to Ed's question of why he became a cop (which I had forgotten until the moment it happened) is no less beautiful. But my emotions having matured (albeit not by much) I had a lot more time for the other two. Bud is pretty sweet, and I can really sympathise with Ed's ambitious streak.

Lots of good scenes as well...as I've said, the Rollo Tomasi conversation, the scene with the girl who looks like Lana Turner ("That is Lana Turner..."), I had another reeely reeely good one but I can't remember it, but I'm sure there are lots of others too.

All in all, it's a great film, absolutely note perfect - 4.5/5? Absolutely...the only reason it's not 5/5 is that there wasn't enough brown...