I watched LA Confidential for the first time last night. Always wanted to see it, just never have. It's on Netflix now.
I ate a large gummy before watching so I was definitely all up inside my head the whole time. Before I get attacked, I agree that it's a great movie overall and I was thoroughly entertained. That said, in my altered state of mind a couple things stuck out at me:
The lead characters sometimes came across as caricatures with one-dimensional motivations, especially Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe. I did feel like they hinted at something a little deeper with Kevin Spacey (who was great, even though we now know he's a creep). Some of the dialogue was very on the nose, and the characters' big dramatic revelations were telegraphed.
Along the same lines, Kim Basinger's character basically just existed to be a sex object for the lead male characters. I skimmed a little bit and was surprised that contemporary reviews didn't call them out more for this.
I couldn't decide as I watched if the filmmakers deliberately made these choices as an homage/tribute to real old school film noir type stuff, or if these were just flaws in the script. Definitely want to rewatch it while sober and see what I think.