3 modern film noir sypnosis


La confidential
Director- Curtis Hanson
Writer- James Ellroy
Release date- 19 September 1997

the film revolves around three LAPD officers caught up in corruption, sex, lies, and murder following a multiple murder at the Nite Owl coffee shop. Officer Wendell "Bud" White (Russell Crowe) is a violent 6-foot-tall brute and the most feared man in the LAPD. His plainclothes partner Dick Stensland was convicted and expelled from the force due to a false testimony by Exley After these events Bud vows revenge against Exley. His ties to the Nite Owl case become personal after Stensland is found to be one of the murder victims at the Nite Owl.

Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is a slick and likable Hollywood cop who moonlights as the technical advisor of Badge of honour, a popular Dragnet- esque television show. Vincennes is also connected with Sid Hudgeons of Hush-Hush magazine. Jack receives kickbacks for making celebrity arrests, often orchestrated, involving narcotics, that will attract even more readers to the magazine and more fame and profit to him.
Sergeant Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce), the son of a legendary LAPD Inspector, is a brilliant officer in his own right, determined to outdo his father. Ed's intelligence, his education, his glasses, his insistence on following regulations, and his cold demeanor all contribute to his social isolation from other officers. He increases this resentment after volunteering to testify against other cops in an infamous police brutality case early on, insisting on a promotion to Detective Lieutenant (which he receives) against the advice of Captain Dudley Smith, who felt that Exley's honesty and his reputation as a snitch would interfere with his ability to supervise detectives. He is motivated by justice, a sense of order, and his personal ambitions.
At different intervals the three men investigate the Nite Owl and concurrent events which in turn begin to reveal deep indications of corruption all around them. Ed Exley pursues absolute justice in the Nite Owl slayings, all the while trying to live up to his family’s prestigious name. Bud White pursues Nite Owl victim Susan Lefferts which leads him to Lynn Bracken, a Veronica Lake look-a-like and call-girl with pivotal ties to the case he and Exley are independently investigating. Meanwhile, Jack Vincennes follows up on a pornography racket that leads to ties to both the Nite Owl and Bracken's handler Pierce Patchett, operator of "Fleur-De-Lis", a call-girl service that runs prostitutes altered by plastic surgery to look like movie stars. All three men's fate is thereby intertwined leading to a dramatic showdown with powerful and corrupt forces within the city's political leadership and the department itself.
Driver
Director- Walter Hill
Writer- Walter Hill
Release date- 10 July 1978

The Driver (O’Neal) is a professional who steals cars to drive as getaway vehicles for big-time robberies. Hot on the Driver's trail is a policeman (Dern), who has nicknamed the Driver "Cowboy" and is determined to bring him down. “I’m gonna catch the cowboy that’s never been caught,” he tells The Driver early on. The Detective becomes so obsessed with defeating the Driver, that he himself sets up a bank job in order to entice — trap, and ultimately arrest — the Driver. Yet the Detective's plan, on which he has put his reputation on the line, blows up in his face: both he and the Driver are set up and burned by an inconsequential player. The real crux of the story comes mid-film, when The Driver has a clear chance to walk away but elects to play The Cop's game - and teach him a lesson.


Brick
Director- Rian Johnson
Writer- Rian Johnson
Release date- 12 may 2006

The lonely teenager Brendan finds his former girlfriend Emily dead in the entrance of a tunnel of sewage and recalls her phone call two days ago, when she said to him that she was in trouble. Brendan, who still loved Emily, met bad elements of his high-school trying to contact her, and when he succeeded, she told him that she was OK. He hides her body in the tunnel and decides to investigate the meaning and connection of four words, including "brick" and "pin", that Emily told him to find who killed her. Using the support of his nerd friend Brain, he successively meets the small time drug dealers Kara, Dode, Brad Bramish, Laura and Tugger, to reach the teenager powerful drug dealer The Pin. Slowly, Brendan unravels the motives why Emily was killed and plots revenge.