James Ellroy slams “impotent” Russell Crowe in ‘LA Confidential’
In a new interview, James Ellroy, the author of LA Confidential, has attacked Curtis Hanson’s 1997 movie adaptation of his book. Ellroy dismissed the film as a “turkey” and labelled stars Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger as “impotent”.
LA Confidential is a neo-noir mystery starring Crowe and Basinger alongside Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, Danny DeVito and David Strathairn. In his new interview, Ellroy asserted he is now free to “disparage” the movie following Hanson’s 2016 death.
The author did acknowledge that the Oscar-nominated movie, which earned $126million at the box office against a budget of $35m, is revered by many. However, he does not share this opinion. This is despite Basinger taking home the Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ and Hanson and Brian Helgeland winning ‘Best Screenplay’.
On April 22nd, Ellroy told the Los Angeles Times that he deems the movie a “turkey of the highest form”. He then criticised Crowe and Basinger’s performances. “People love the movie LA Confidential,” the author said. “I think it’s turkey of the highest form. I think Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger are impotent. The director died, so now I can disparage the movie.”
Ellroy previously denounced Hanson’s adaptation in 2016, claiming that the director “rearranged my world and repopulated it with men and women less extreme than mine”.
“My plotlines were reduced and re-stitched, my time frame was compressed, my love stories were re-triangulated. I created a world on paper. Curtis Hanson re-created it for film,” he wrote in Variety. “It was my world but his world but my world to the point where all claims of ownership were blurred and lost. My dramatic sense and Curtis’s dramatic sense were always at odds.”
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