L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Captain Dudley Smith: Have you a valediction, boyo?
Jack Vincennes: [gasping out a name] ... Rollo Tamasi.
[laughs, painfully, to himself as he dies]

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

[last lines]
Lynn Bracken: Some men get the world. Others get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona.
[She kisses Exley on the cheek]
Lynn Bracken: Bye.
Ed Exley: Bye.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Captain Dudley Smith: I wouldn't trade places with Edmund Exley right now for all the whiskey in Ireland.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Captain Dudley Smith: Go back to Jersey, sonny. This is the City of the Angels, and you haven't got any wings.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Captain Dudley Smith: Edmund, you're a political animal. You have the eye for human weakness, but not the stomach.
Ed Exley: You're wrong, sir.
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to plant corroborative evidence on a suspect you knew to be guilty, in order to ensure an indictment?
Ed Exley: Dudley,

we've been over this.
Captain Dudley Smith: Yes or no, Edmund?
Ed Exley: No!
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to beat a confession out of a suspect you knew to be guilty?
Ed Exley: No.
Captain Dudley Smith: Would you be willing to shoot a hardened criminal in the back,

in order to offset the chance that some... lawyer...
Ed Exley: No.
Captain Dudley Smith: Then, for the love of God, don't be a detective. Stick to assignments where you don't have...
Ed Exley: Dudley, I know you mean well, but I don't need to do it the way you did. Or my father.
Captain Dudley Smith: At

least get rid of the glasses. I can't think of another man in the department who wears them.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Lynn Bracken: You're the first man in five years who didn't tell me I look like Veronica Lake inside of a minute.
Bud White: You look better than Veronica Lake.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Jack Vincennes: I'm the technical advisor. I teach Brett Chase how to walk and talk like a cop.
Jack's Dancing Partner: Brett Chase doesn't walk and talk like you.
Jack Vincennes: Well, that's 'cause he's the television version. America isn't ready for the real me.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Lynn Bracken: I see Bud because I want to. I see Bud because he can't hide the good inside of him. I see Bud because he treats me like Lynn Bracken and not some Veronica Lake look-alike who fucks for money.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Ed Exley: If we're going to figure this out, we need to work together.
Bud White: The Nite Owl made you. You want to tear all that down?
Ed Exley: With a wrecking ball. You want to help me swing it?

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Lynn Bracken: You say "fuck" a lot.
Bud White: You fuck for money.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Ed Exley: Do you make the three Negroes for the Nite Owl killings?
Jack Vincennes: [puzzled] What?
Ed Exley: It's a simple question.
Jack Vincennes: Why in the world do you wanna go digging any deeper into the Nite Owl killings... Lieutenant?
Ed Exley: ...Rollo Tamasi.

Jack Vincennes: Is there more to that, or am I supposed to guess?
Ed Exley: [aftre gathering his thoughts] Rollo was a purse snatcher. My father ran into him off duty, and he shot my father six times and got away clean. No one even knew who he was. I just made the name up to give him some personality.
Jack Vincennes: What's your

point?
Ed Exley: Rollo Tamasi is the reason I became a cop. I wanted to catch the guys who thought they could get away with it. It's supposed to be about justice. Then somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that... Why'd you become a cop?
Jack Vincennes: [long pause] I don't remember.
[brief hesitation]
Jack

Vincennes: What do you want, Exley?
Ed Exley: I just wanna solve this thing.
Jack Vincennes: The Nite Owl *was* solved.
Ed Exley: No; I wanna do it right.
Jack Vincennes: Even if it means paying the consequences?
[Exley nods his head, Vincennes stands up from his chair]

Jack Vincennes: All right, college boy, I'll help. But there's a case you boys in Homicide don't care about, you think it's just another Hollywood "homo"-cide. Well, I don't. You help me with mine, I'll help you with yours. Deal?
Ed Exley: Deal.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Johnny Stompanato: You want an autograph? Write to MGM.
Ed Exley: Since when do two-bit hoods and hookers give out autographs?
Johnny Stompanato: What'd you say to me?
Ed Exley: LAPD. Sit down.
Lana Turner: Who in the hell do you think you are?
Jack Vincennes:

Ed...
Ed Exley: Take a walk, honey, before I haul your ass downtown.
Johnny Stompanato: You are making a large mistake.
Lana Turner: Get away from our table!
Ed Exley: Shut up! A hooker cut to look like Lana Turner is still a hooker.
Johnny Stompanato: Hey!
Ed

Exley: She just looks like Lana Turner.
Jack Vincennes: She *is* Lana Turner.
Ed Exley: [stunned] What?
Jack Vincennes: She *is* Lana Turner.
[Lana throws a drink in Ed's face]

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Captain Dudley Smith: You'll do as I say, and ask no questions. Do you follow my drift?
Bud White: In technicolor, sir.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

[Exley and White are waiting inside the Victory Motel with guns drawn]
Ed Exley: All I ever wanted was to measure up to my father.
Bud White: Now's your chance.
[Exley gives him a puzzled look]
Bud White: He died in the line of duty, didn't he?
[the two share a laugh, just before thugs storm the room and a

gunfight begins]

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Bud White: I'd like to see you again.
Lynn Bracken: Are you asking me for a date, or an appointment?
Bud White: ...I don't know.
Lynn Bracken: Well, if you're asking me for a date, I should know your first name.
Bud White: [embarrassed] Forget I asked. It was a mistake.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Ed Exley: A naked man with a gun? Do you really expect anyone to believe that?
Bud White: Get the fuck away from me.
Ed Exley: How's it gonna look in your report?
Bud White: It'll look like justice. That's what the man got. Justice.
Ed Exley: You don't know the meaning of the word, you

ignorant bastard.
Bud White: Oh yeah, well you think it means getting your picture in the paper. Why don't you go after criminals for a change, instead of cops?
[punches Exley in the shoulder and then starts to walk away]
Ed Exley: Stensland got what he deserved, and so will you.
[a furious White tries to attack Exley, only to be

restrained by the Captain and by several other cops]
Captain Dudley Smith: It's best to stay away from a man when his blood is up.
Ed Exley: His blood is always up.
Captain Dudley Smith: Then perhaps you should stay away from him altogether.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Bud White: Merry Christmas.
Lynn Bracken: Merry Christmas to you, officer.
Bud White: That obvious, huh?
Lynn Bracken: It's practically stamped on your forehead.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

City Councilman: [told by Bud to leave Lynn's house] Maybe I will. Maybe I won't.
Bud White: [flashes his badge] LAPD, shitbird. Get the fuck outta here or I'll call your wife to come get you!
[while Lynn hides a smile, the client gathers up his clothes, and walks out front door]
City Councilman: Officer.
Bud

White: Councilman.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

Sid Hudgens: Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.

L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential

[White approaches Loew in the bathroom after he refused to answer Exley's questions]
Ellis Loew: Unless you came here to wipe my ass, I believe we're through.
[White looks at him, silently]
Ellis Loew: Come on, don't try that "Good Cop-Bad Cop" crap. I practically invented it. So what if some homo actor is dead, huh? Boys, girls, ten of them

step off the bus to L.A. every day...
[White smashes Loew's head into the mirror and then sticks it into the toilet]
Ellis Loew: Pull him off me, Exley!
Ed Exley: I don't know how.
Bud White: Now, I know you think you're the A-number one hotshot. But here's the juice: if I take you out, there'll be ten more lawyers to

take your place tomorrow. They just won't come on the bus, that's all!
[White drags Loew into his office and dangles him out of the window by his legs until he confesses]
Ed Exley: Was that how you used to run the "Good Cop-Bad Cop"?