#1 ·
film Cop (1988)
Brown's Requiem (1998)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
trailer Dark Blue (2002)
trailer The Black Dahlia (2006)
trailer Street Kings (2008)
film Cop (1988) - clip - apology - My bad, but finding a trailer for this one is basically a suicide mission... so here's a 2-minute clip just so you get the vibe.
Brown's Requiem (1998) - Trailer - Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't... just a heads up.
L.A. Confidential (1997) - Trailer
trailer Dark Blue (2002)
trailer The Black Dahlia (2006)
trailer Street Kings (2008)
James Ellroy - Wiki
Since my fellow forum members have started leaning a bit more toward quantity over quality with these massive polls lately... I figured I’d pivot to something a little simpler—maybe even a bit more personal. Since there's already some literature having themes about Ellroy going on over in the Lit section, I thought I'd pull the focus over here to his "cinematic" side. I'm one of those people who automatically links interesting writers—well, favorites, let's say—with their screen adaptations. And since Ellroy is active in the industry both with original stories and scripts, it makes sense to bring him into the conversation that way. This is meant to be the kind of thread where you actually need to know a writer's body of work to judge a film objectively—I've got a few more ideas like this in the works, hence the plural... but yeah. Also, if a movie actually inspired you to pick up one of Ellroy's books... feel free to mention that. The poll is mostly just a formality, really, just to see how his movies stack up against the books. But anyway, let's take it one step at a time...
He’s basically the legitimate heir to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett—though at this point, he’s kind of in a league of his own—with a writing style so distinct it’s practically its own genre. Most famous for his L.A. Quartet series (I’ll throw in the Loyd Hopkins Trilogy too—the first one was turned into the film Cop), James Ellroy was never really a massive magnet for filmmakers. Aside from the adaptation of Blood on the Moon, there wasn't much until L.A. Confidential came along, which was a massive hit with critics and finally gave him some global recognition. After nearly a decade of silence on the film front, Ellroy suddenly became a hot commodity in Hollywood, though the results have been a bit of a mixed bag. Corrupt cops, immoral bosses, dirty little secrets, throwing in real-life celebrities or historical scandals, hard-boiled characters, and unapologetic violence... those are the staples of his work, and they definitely sell.
Regarding the film Cop here’s a quick critique and breakdown... it’s pretty much what you get with most movies based on his books, but it’s been totally overlooked by the industry, so I’m just trying to dust it off a bit and suggest it if you're into gritty detectives, gorgeous women with questionable morals, gruesome murders, and all that fun stuff—plus, you get James Woods in his absolute prime. Just my two cents, but none of the subsequent adaptations quite capture that specific magic this film has, though that's just me. The famous L.A. Confidential isn't a bad movie per se... assuming you don't compare it to the book (anyone who actually read it knows how much was cut and how simplified the plot got), but in terms of pure quality, it gets easily outshined by the newer adaptation, Brown's Requiem. I'll pass on comparing that one since I haven't actually read the novel yet—it's been sitting on my shelf for a few years now. And then you have De Palma’s decent failure, though "failure" probably carries more weight than "decent" when talking about his take on The Black Dahlia. Honestly... less ambitious movies seem to nail the atmosphere of his writing better than the big-budget productions.
As the author of the original story for Dark Blue, Ellroy delivers exactly what you'd expect: a morally bankrupt cop, a corrupt police department, a hero's desperate attempt at redemption, and turning his back on the very people he's been protecting for years. What else can I say... it’s a brilliant movie in every sense. Russell is right up there with Woods, and he absolutely eats up guys like Josh Hartnett and Keanu Reeves, who should be playing the roles his character represents in this (underrated) flick. Street Kings, his last foray into film, credits him as a screenwriter, and while it has all the usual ingredients from his previous work... the movie is a bit of a slog, a relatively exhausting miss. With more adaptations of his work being announced lately (White Jazz is already starting to look like a mess where they can't even find the right cast), you have to wonder how well they'll actually turn out.
So, a question for the group: do you actually consider James Ellroy an author whose work is worth paying attention to, or are the elements of his novels and films just relics of a bygone era?