By Jay Carr, Globe Staff, 09/10/97

This lush, throbbing evocation of the sleazy Hollywood allure of the '50s is clearly destined to become one of the hits of the festival -- and of 1997. The narrative density and dark ferocity that made James Ellroy's novel so compelling are transferred to the screen with visual style and a dozen jolting performances. And besides, the movie re-creates an era when a lot of the usual suspects were members of the LAPD, instead of being chased by it. With its account of twisted deeds creating the first of the scandal sheets, it is in some ways the perfect entertainment for the supermarket-tabloid culture of the '90s. ``L.A. Confidential'' is ``Chinatown'' with redder lipstick on the women and with the bad guys carrying badges.

Steamy and seamy, its lavish helpings of corruption, racism, and perversity never move the film into easy cynicism. There's a core of idealism at the heart of its two-fisted, hair-trigger cop, Russell Crowe, moved by a sense of mission -- to protect women -- that's the product of lifelong guilt at being unable to stop his own mother's murder. (Novelist Ellroy's mother, too, was murdered, and the murder was never solved.) Crowe's tarnished romance with Kim Basinger's call girl turned by plastic surgery and peroxide into a Veronica Lake look-alike is believably feelingful and in the best traditions of noir.

Usually corrupt Southern California turns into a feeding frenzy when real-life mobster Mickey Cohen is jailed and the rackets are up for grabs. David Strathairn's arrogantly well-connected pimp, who means to do some of the grabbing, skillfully embodies up-market rot. Another vivid impression is made by Crowe's Australian colleague, Guy Pearce, as a pinched and prissy but heroic straight arrow. Kevin Spacey is drolly superb as the vain but savvy veteran attached to a ``Dragnet''-like TV show; James Cromwell is solidly malignant as the grand old man of the corrupt police faction; and Danny DeVito brings amusingly shameless enthusiasm to his scandal-mongering.

Throughout, director Curtis Hanson wisely opts for narrative thrust instead of nostalgic noir flourishes -- a must, given the complex narrative. One of the things the film conveys, in addition to pervasive corruption, is the energy and excitement of a city that knows it's on the move. ``L.A. Confidential'' is juicy dynamite.