9 Smartest Decisions In Action Movie History
4. LA Confidential - Saying Rollo Tomasi's Name
LA Confidential - the 1997 film, based on the 1990 James Ellroy book of the same name. Nowadays you'd call it an all-star cast of Russell Crowe, Guy Pierce, Kim Basinger, Danny Devito, and Kevin Spacey. Well, okay, maybe not that last one anymore. In '97 the director, Curtis Hanson, had to fight to cast Pierce and Crowe, relative unknowns at the time, in their starring roles. The film would go on to win numerous awards, as well as a fortune - raking in almost $130 million in the box office, alone on a budget of only $35 million.
One very important scene in the middle of the film is when Spacey's character, vice detective Jack Vincennes, seeks out information from corrupt police captain Dudley Smith, played fantastically by James Cromwell. Smith suddenly shoots Vincennes and his dying words set the entire last act of the film. Vincennes smiles a bit as he realises the truth and says "Rollo Tomasi".
The next day Smith asks Pierce's character, the ambitious and naïve detective Exley, about Tomasi. Unbeknownst to Smith, Rollo Tomasi is a fake name that Exley uses to embody the unnamed criminal who gunned down his cop father decades ago. He had told Vincennes the story shortly before Smith killed him.
This gives Exley and Crowe's character, White, the most important information they need to win in the end - the fact that Smith is the Big Bad of the film. Without Vincenne's quick thinking Smith probably would have done the same to Exley and White and eventually gotten away with his nefarious plot.