L.A. Confidential (Blu-ray)

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The deeper we get into the case, the more engrossing it becomes. Indeed, it's hard to take your eyes off the screen for a second or miss a line of dialogue. Moreover, it's hard to recall a movie with a better ensemble cast, every person I've mentioned and others contributing to the film's gritty appeal.

With a terrific cast, great period atmosphere, and an abundance of who-done-what-to-whom, "L.A. Confidential" offers riveting entertainment for those who enjoy good detective stories, good character dramas, good thrillers, and plain-old good filmmaking.

The Academy nominated "LA. Confidential" for nine Oscars, including Best Picture and Director. It won two: Best Supporting Actress (Basinger) and Best Writing (Helgeland and Hanson).

Finally, remember the name "Rollo Tomasi." It's become almost as famous as "Keyser Söze" did a few years before.

Video:
Warner Bros. use a VC-1 encode and a dual-layer BD50 to reproduce the 2.40:1 ratio movie in 1080p. The opening shots use stock footage from the 1950s, which looks intentionally grainy and blurry; then, when the regular part of the digitally remastered high-def picture starts, it's quite a contrast. Although the image retains a degree of roughness from a light, natural film grain and can also look a bit soft at times, for the most part it acquits itself nicely. Colors are strong and deep; black levels are solid; and definition is mostly crisp. It may not be absolute reference quality, but it's quite realistic and probably well represents what was on the original print.

Audio:
Ordinary Dolby Digital is the default audio track, so if you have the capability to play back Dolby TrueHD, you'll need to remember to change your audio setting. In TrueHD 5.1 you'll hear a reasonably wide front-channel stereo spread and a smooth midrange response, just the things for a movie that concentrates as much as this one does on dialogue. For most of the movie there isn't much surround activity beyond some musical ambience reinforcement. However, the final shoot-out is worthy of any new action thriller, and it will give your rear and/or side speakers quite a workout.

Extras:
Disc one of this two-disc Blu-ray set contains the feature film and a slew of standard-def extras. The first one extra is an audio commentary by a number of people involved in the filmmaking, starting with movie critic and historian Andrew Sarris; the book's author, James Ellroy; screenwriter and co-producer Brian Helgeland; production designer Jeannine Oppewall; cinematographer Dante Spinotti; costume designer Ruth Myers; and stars Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Guy Pierce, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, David Stathairn, and James Cromwell. They each have a little to say, with Sarris trying tying things together.

Following the commentary, we find a number of newly made (2008) featurettes. There's "Whatever You Desire: Making L.A. Confidential," twenty-nine minutes; "Sunlight and Shadow: The Visual Style of L.A. Confidential," twenty-one minutes; "A True Ensemble: The Cast of L.A. Confidential," twenty-four minutes; "L.A. Confidential: From Book to Screen," twenty-one minutes; "Off the Record," eighteen minutes; and "Director Curtis Hanson's Photo Pitch," eight minutes. Then, there's "The L.A. of L.A. Confidential Interactive Map Tour" of some of the actual locations around Los Angeles and Hollywood used in the movie, followed by "L.A. Confidential," a TV series pilot filmed in 1999 and eventually released on television in 2003; a music-only track showcasing Jerry Goldsmith's score; several TV spots; and a theatrical trailer.

The extras on disc one conclude with a generous forty scene selections; English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian spoken languages; English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Disc two is an "L.A. Confidential" CD sampler of music used in the movie. Here we find six tracks: Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers doing "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive"; Chet Baker doing "Look for the Silver Lining"; Betty Hutton doing "Hit the Road to Dreamland"; Kay Starr doing "Wheel of Fortune"; Dean Martin doing "Powder Your Face With Sunshine (Smile! Smile! Smile!); and Jackie Gleason with "But Not for Me."

Parting Thoughts:
OK, maybe I'm exaggerating when I say "L.A. Confidential" has already established itself as a genuine screen classic. But it's got me convinced that it can hold its own with the likes of "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), "The Big Sleep" (1946), "Out of the Past" (1947), "Bullitt" (1968), and "Chinatown" (1974). Still, I'm a mystery and detective fan, so maybe I'm showing a bias.

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