Stupidity: When White and Exley meet outside the motel and realise they've been set up, White suggests they leave, but Exley says it's too late. It wasn't even close to too late. There were no other people around, they had cars and there was a road right in front of them. Then they decide to go trap themselves inside the motel. It seems like they wanted to be shot.
La Confidential (1997)
1 stupidity
Directed by: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger, James Cromwell
Revealing mistake: When the body of Miss Lefferts is being viewed, the 'dead' girl blinks slightly. (00:34:35)
Ed Exley: Why'd you become a cop?
Jack Vincennes: I don't remember.
Trivia: Had the film been successfully adapted into a TV series, Jack Vincennes would have been played by Kiefer Sutherland. Coincidentally, one of Sutherland's co-stars in The Sentinel (2006) is Kim Basinger, who won an Oscar for her role in this film; James Cromwell played his father in season six of "24."
Question: Ed Exley recommends that the LAPD shift the blame for Bloody Christmas to men whose pensions are secured, and he names Bud White and Richard Stensland as two such men. But when Dudley Smith later tells Bud White that Stensland has been forced to retire, White says "A year from his pension!" So was Stensland entitled to a pension or not?
Answer: Exley is suggesting two things: to shift some blame to three officers with secured pensions and forcing them to retire; when he refers to White and Stensland though, he is saying "someone has to swing" and that they should be charged, tried and imprisoned - so Stensland is not entitled to a pension.
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Suggested correction: It's not uncommon for dead bodies to continue moving after death. Many internal parts of the body continue functioning in some fashion for hours after death and nerves and muscles can twitch.
raywest ★