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Hollywood Orthodox believes in the purgatory of a shoot-out, the hell of sudden death and the heaven of a happy ending

L A Confidential belongs to the Hollywood Orthodox church of movie-making. It even starts with a nostalgic mini tour of the Holy land – Los Angeles, city of camera angles. Technicolour monotheism is like a rigged football match: God is doomed to win over the Devil from the title sequence onwards. God's team looks boyish and wholesome, is heterosexual and filled with moral doubt. The Devil's team is older, has either no sex life or a twisted one, and is committed to its evil ways in a suave, friction free manner.

In the film, for instance, the blue eyed baby-faced Bud White, defender of battered women, is so far Right that he can even go Wrong momentarily and come up shining. He is passionate and hot-headed. He had a childhood trauma. And he gets the girl. The villain, meanwhile, is never shown with a woman, is venerable in a reptilian way and when he shoots to kill, shows no emotions. The Devil doesn't blink, you know. Neither do Hollywood villains.

The action is set in the Big Clunky Car era, when racism and genderism were full-frontal. But nineties sensibilities coat the dialogue in verbal Vaseline. Though the word 'Negro' is used in reference to African Americans, quotation marks glisten in the air as today's actors use yesterday's word. Three African boys are arrested in connection with a grisly shootout in a cafe, but it can be safely assumed that they can't possibly be the real culprits. The characters in the film think they are, all the evidence points in that direction but -- hey! In our world, people of colour are too cool to be evil, right? Mexicans show up too but as victims: In a punch-up behind bars and as a savaged rape victim.

Even the naughty language is carefully restrained. There's just the one word repeated at two-minute intervals, as if all the bad guys and all the good guys together couldn't come up with anything more potent than that monosyllabic synonym for intercourse. In fact, the absolute proof that the f-word has finally been declassified is that Indian Censor Board no longer suppresses it. Even they, it seems, have recognised the illogic of banning a word whose unprotected practice the combined forces of the Family Planning Programme and the AIDS virus have been unable to prevent.

So all right, the only female character of consequence is a scarlet woman who rents out her body for the pleasure of men. In movies of the era this film describes, even as a heroine such a woman would probably be required to die a noble death defending the hero. But in our era, she looks like a queen, her hair is blonde and silky, her lipstick is as flawless as a fresh coat of matte paint. And when she beds down with Baby-face, it's not in the satin-lined rumpus room reserved for clients. Oh no. It's in a humble little ante-chamber with cross-stitched cushions on a country-girl's brass bed. Not only that, but she's the distilled essence of pheromones incarnate. Never mind that Kim Basinger is enough past her prime that we don’t ever get to see her in tight close-ups: No mere man can resist her.

When the Anti-Hero stumbles into her modest mansion, she has only to stand close to him before he begins to snort and rear, his rimless glasses steam up and wham! 50 miles an hour from a standing start. Mind you, there are indications, very subtle and delicate of course, that the lady is performing under orders. She doesn't actually ever smile at him, for instance, nor he at her. They are never seen unclothed together. Their time coupled onscreen lasts only just long enough to establish that he knows about the birds and the bees, but not that he's especially skilled in gathering honey. He's only the anti-hero, after all, not the hero. Monotheist cinema demands that only the one true Hero receives the sacraments of sexual pleasure. All the rest must be content with mere fornication or variations thereof.

Nevertheless, it's refreshing to have an Anti-Hero at all and an Anti-Villain too: He's irretrievably debonair but he suffers moral conflict and even manages redemption for himself towards the end. The Anti-Hero is an interesting specimen. He's not strictly good-looking but he's honourable and squeaky clean. He represents an early incarnation of the computer nerd and, following the modern canon, proves that nerds are a valid life-form. Just so long as their brains don't get in the way of their bullets. And so long as they can place male-bonding above romance, buddies over bodies.

Hollywood Orthodox is an austere faith. It believes in flagellation, trials by terror, by chase, by jury, by peer group pressure, by strength, by honour. It believes in the purgatory of a shoot-out, the hell of sudden death and the heaven of a happy ending. But we're all the faithful aren't we? Hallelujah, amen, end credits, please. Go see it at once.