So this is a movie where my long-standing “meh, disappointing” verdict was based on dim memories of having seen it in the theatres as a young lad in the waning years of the old millennium; my wife has had the contrariwise “watched it in college, thought it was amazing” reaction, and we wanted to rewatch it to see which of us would change our mind. (The spoiler is: She thought it wasn’t as good as she remembered, and I thought it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. Convergence!)

Beyond my vague memory of Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce in suits, and Kim Basinger in a glamorous Veronica Lake[1] look, I remembered almost nothing of this movie. I didn’t remember Kevin Spacey at all, certainly didn’t remember Danny DeVito or his early narration, and wouldn’t have known who David Strathairn was back then.

What I remembered was that it was kinda noirish, so I assumed that meant Basinger came to Crowe and Pearce in trouble, but no: There’s this whole elaborate story about police corruption, and about the different ways that three cops (Spacey being the third) intersect with that, and the various cases they’re investigating, and how they do or don’t tie together. It’s actually a surprisingly complex plot, so I’m not surprised I forgot it; I’ll probably forget it again soon, tbh.

But as complex as the plot is, this isn’t really a movie about the plot — it’s about the characters. “How would you react if put into this situation?” it seems to ask, and gives us the smirking, cynical Spacey (who gives the signature line of the movie: when asked why he became a cop in the first place, he says “I don’t remember” in a way that is honest, bemused, and with a tinge of self-loathing), the upright-but-ambitious Guy Pearce, and the nakedly rage-filled Russell Crowe. It’s good cops and bad cops, but it’s never quite clear which one is which.

It works for what it is, and it has some of that old-Hollywood glamour. I think as movies of investigation into LA corruption go, it’s better than Chinatown, but not as good as The Big Lebowski.

  1. (I definitely had no idea who Veronica Lake was back then, but now have actually seen her in some movies, so.) ↩︎