Plot: LA in the 50's: someone's killing imprisoned mob boss Mickey Cohen's gang. The police, led by Captain Dudley, convince wiseguys from Jersey, Cleveland, and elsewhere to go home. Rich developer, Pierce Patchett, runs a stable of high-class hookers who are ringers for movie stars. The plot to replace Cohen blindsides three plainclothes cops: White watched his father beat his mother to death then vanish, he punishes abusers with quick violence; Exley's father was a hero cop killed mysteriously, he seeks justice by the book; Vicennes, a clothes horse, consults for a Dragnet-like TV show. Will they escape corruption and murder, will they find their own morality?
Alternative Plot: Three policemen, each with his own motives and obsessions, tackle the corruption surrounding an unsolved murder at a downtown Los Angeles coffee shop in the early 1950s. Detective Lieutenant Exley (Guy Pearce), the son of a murdered detective, is out to avenge his father's killing. The ex-partner of Officer White (Russell Crowe), implicated in a scandal rooted out by Exley, was one of the victims. Sergeant Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) feeds classified information to a tabloid magnate (Danny DeVito).
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