FAQ for
L.A. Confidential (1997) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for L.A. Confidential can be found here.

Yes. It's based on L.A. Confidential, a 1990 novel by American crime writer James Ellroy. L.A. Confidential is actually the third book in a series of four books called The L.A. Quartet. They are The Black Dahlia (1987), The Big Nowhere (1988), L.A. Confidential (1990), and White Jazz (1992). The Black Dahlia was the basis of the movie, The Black Dahlia (2006), and White Jazz is being made into a movie, White Jazz, for release in 2009.

Yes, Exley [Guy Pearce] testified. That's why Stensland [Graham Beckel] knocked his box to the floor, why the other detectives sneered at him working late and groaned when he was put in charge of the investigations, and only Vincennes [Kevin Spacey] (who also testified) would partner with him.

Exley wanted to send White [Russell Crowe] down, but Captain Dudley Smith [James Cromwell] protected him at the cost of letting Stensland go. From then on, Dudley was able to coerce Bud into doing anything he wanted him to.

It was police work. They escaped and he could be pretty sure they weren't stupid enough to go straight home, so he looked for possible hideouts. There's a brief scene where Exley talks to the police stenographer who took notes during the interrogation scene. She reads her notes & reveals that they'd previously gone to Roland Navarette's place for drugs, which is where Exley finds them.

The original plan of having Bruning and Carlyle kill them at their apartment was foiled when Vincennes and Exley showed up to arrest them. The only explanation given for their escape is someone overheard saying "How did they jump out the window anyway?", implying they were left unsupervised in a place from which they could escape. The most likely answer is that Dudley, or one of his men, let them go so they could be hunted and killed while resisting arrest, to tie up loose ends. Later, in the records room, after Bud White confronts Exley with Sid's blackmail photo of Exley and Lynn Bracken, Exley deduces this, and experiences a wave of revulsion and guilt with the realization that Dudley set him up to be the negroes' executioner.

Susan Lefferts' body can be seen briefly when Exley opens the restroom door at the Nite Owl massacre, where a single shotgun wound to her chest is visible. This same wound is visible when the sheet is pulled back at the morgue, though hard to detect due to the viewing angle and presumable cleansing of the body.

Neither were in on the murders. The only ones in on it were the killers - Captain Dudley Smith, Det. Michael Breuning [Tomas Arana], and Det. William Carlyle [Michael McCleery].

Sid [Danny DeVito] was indeed in league with Smith and Patchett [David Strathairn]. However, what Sid does not realize (ditto Patchett ultimately) is that Dudley Smith basicallly sees everyone as disposable. As soon as they have served his purpose he's happy to get rid of them, and he certainly does not tell anyone all of his plans.

Sid introduces Matt Reynolds [Simon Baker] to Ellis Loew [Ron Rifkin] because he heard that Loew was bisexual, and he wanted to either expose him as such in Hush-Hush or to blackmail him at a later point. Recall Sid and Patchett were involved in blackmailing celebrities, as evidenced by Jack Vincennes' statement to Dudley just before Vincennes was killed by the captain. Later at the hotel, Reynolds and Loew were surprised by Smith, who was there to strong-arm Loew into giving him help by covering up various things. Reynolds overheard, was spotted and killed, while Loew fled the scene. Listen closely to Loew's confession as Bud White is dangling Loew out of the office window.

They had compromising photos of the DA with Matt Reynolds and were using them to blackmail Loew. The kid went to Loew to have sex with him, so Sid had blackmail material.

Exley was being questioned by two Internal Affairs detectives. Immediately after Exley finishes his statement, Ellis Loew, the DA, laments "Well, the press is gonna have a field day with this." The IA detectives stand and exit the soundproof interrogation room. During the brief moment the door is open, Exley hears another city official's frustrated response to Loew. "This? Christ, it'll stain the department for years." The sound of the interrogation room door closing is then clearly heard. Exley doesn't hear the Police Chief's correction, "Decades!", but Exley's expression indicates he heard enough of their conversation to know the magnitude the city officials assigned to his discoveries. Exley was intelligent. He knew that in the wake of Bloody Christmas, the LAPD would not want to attract further scandal by admitting that Dudley Smith, a senior captain, had been in fact a big-time underworld figure. They would want to dress up how he died as an act of heroism. The Victory Motel was due to be bulldozed and, with it, any evidence would be swept away anyway. This meant that White and Exley would need to be paid off a lot to play along. The DA and the Police Chief knew this; so did Exley.

Exley was determined to root out the bad apples one by one and clean up the LAPD. If he had gone public, the police department would have closed ranks, dismissed him from the force, rubbished his claims as conspiracy theories or mud-slinging, and watched him disappear or even thrown him in jail. By staying quiet, he was able to advance further in the department and be in a position to fulfill this agenda, as evidenced by his last line, "They're using me, so for a little while I'm using them."