I do suggest Chris that if you liked LA Confidential then check out Layer Cake, a british crime film where a drug dealer ends up trying to please three different groups after ending up with a large amount of stolen product.
Just as well written and brilliantly presented.

Great point! Your comment also reminds me of a scene from the HBO film “Citizen X”, where Max Von Sydow says to Stephen Rea and Donald Sutherland: “Together you make a wonderful person.”

It really is a fantastic film, and I wouldn’t hesitate to put it above Memento (though that is extraordinary as well).

It’s also one of those movies where you can find little things you missed the last time around. When Exley and Vincennes come upon the two cops finding the shotguns in the Nite Owl suspect’s car, the two cops share a look. The first time through, the look seems to indicate they’re not happy about having to share their collar with Exley and Jack.

Once you know they’re Dudley’s guys, and they’ve planted the shotguns and were planning to kill the suspects, the look means something entirely different. I love stuff like that.

The very end, with the sunshine and smiles, definitely needed to go. I do like Exley’s fate being wrapped up, though, and the line: “A hero? In this situation, you’ll need more than one.”

The way he leverages the potential disgrace to the department as a way to turn his first black mark into just another shining moment in his career felt like the culmination of both his strengths and his weaknesses as a character: smart ambition driven by an ugly personal grudge.

Specifically, they make a whole Dudley Smith, who is presented from the start as both a politician and a man comfortable with violence, which is why it takes both of them to stop him, and why they gain a little bit of each other along the way.