L.A. Confidential Recut
 a TRUE FANEDIT by Neglify L.A. Confidential with less focus on Bud White and Lynn Bracken and an ending more in line with the overall tone of the film. member ratings: |
(6 votes, average: 8.50 out of 10, rated)
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_____Amazon Link to come_____ |
INTENTION:
I absolutely love L.A. Confidential. But usually when I re-watch it, I find myself skipping past most of the Bud White and Lynn Bracken scenes. I wanted to create an edit that would cut out the parts of their storyline that kind of drag the movie. As well, I felt like the ending was a little too upbeat.
EDIT DETAILS:
I trimmed almost every scene Bud and Lynn have together and cut the ending.
CUTLIST:
- Trimmed the beginning and ending of Bud going to Lynn’s house for the first time.
- Cut out Bud and Lynn’s first sex scene.
- Trimmed their scene in bed together. Cut out reference to Bisbee, Arizona and cut it before Bud starts talking about the Night Owl case.
- Re-ordered the scene with Exley taking Inez out of the hospital. It used to come before the above scene but now it’s right after.
- Cut out scene of Exley and Lynn at the police station. As well, trimmed two lines of dialogue between Exley and Bud right before this scene.
- Cut the epilogue. The film fades to black on the image of Exley holding up his badge to the police.
- Removed the upbeat music during the end credits and replaced it with Jerry Goldsmith’s main theme. (As well I added an extra music track in the credits.)
- Cut out the “Badge of Honor” bits from the end credits as they didn’t fit with this edit.
SPECIAL THANKS
Thanks to Gatos and BlueYoda for previewing my workprint and giving great feedback.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Isolated Music-Only Audio Track (DVD only)
Drinking Game subtitle track (DVD and MP4)
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I’ve had the honor of previewing this before it was released and I must say from the start that I hadn’t seen the original movie.
Everything flowed well – I’d be hard pressed to point out what had been taken out. So I can only review based on my appreciation of this version, and not on the positive changes that were made from the original.
Fans of hard boiled type stories will enjoy this. The movies Payback and Sin City immediately sprang to mind while watching this. Arguably it could have been made even better if filmed in black and white but the editor chose to stay in color. Probably a wise choice considering this would not convert well if artificially done.
Good acting, powerful dialog had me hooked; I was explained what the differences were with the original and although I’ve never seen it (even if I own it) I agree with the editor’s choices. As a fan of hard boiled stories, I agree with the changes.
All in all, if you’re looking for a solid story with good actors, excellent dialog and an edge that you won’t necessarely find in what’s being offered today, then this fanedit’s for you. Not science-fiction or horror as there are so many on this site but a solid entry into the great world of fanediting and its potential.
8/10
Review by blueyoda — November 29, 2011 @ 3:23 am
WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!
(This review is not meant as a personal attack on the editor, it is simply this reviewer’s opinions on the edit).
Well I was lucky enough to see a workprint of L.A. Confidential Recut by Neglify. Unfortunately this didn’t allow me to follow my usual “routine” when it comes to watching fanedits: rewatch the original, then watch the fanedit. It’d been quite awhile since I had last seen L.A. Confidential. So as I watched the Recut there were certain parts where I said to myself “wait isn’t there another part/scene here” and other times where i didn’t notice/remember that anything was taken away.
So, L.A. Confidential Recut, after rewatching the original, i came to appreciate the changes Neglify has made to the movie. Now I was aware of the big change being a drastic reduction of the Bud/Lynn romance. And I can do without the romance bit. It does tend to weigh down the film a bit and slow the pace. And i think Neglify’s choices on how to condense it worked perfectly. It’s still clear that Bud and Lynn has a romantic relationship and that it was something special. But now there is no “wrapped in a bow” resolution. The relationship ends after Bud hits Lynn. Dare I say this makes it more realistic? And when you match this change with the other big change Neglify makes (which I will discuss shortly) it makes for a darker, grittier story IMO.
So the big change, that in my opinion was the best change in this fanedit, was the ending. I think the changes to the ending that Neglify made have a greater (positive) impact than the reduction of Lynn in the story. No happy ending, no medal ceremony, Bud doesn’t survive and live happily ever after with Lynn. I think the ending works so much better. And c’mon, be honest, how much of a buzzkill is Exley’s exposition of the who/what/where/when and why of the bad guys. So in case you haven’t figured it out, I really like the new ending that Neglify gave this edit.
DVD Presentation: There is a nice motion menu for the DVD. And there is a fun bonus feature which is a drinking game. I laughed quite a bit just reading the rules of the game.
VIDEO EDITING: 10/10 (This is based on the workprint as I have no had a chance to watch the finalized DVD). No extra frames, no jarring cuts.
AUDIO EDITING: 10/10 (Again this is based off the workprint). No audio drop outs, no harsh cuts.
So overall I really enjoyed this edit. The changes that were made were significant and really alter the mood and tone of the movie. I’m not sure I can say definitively that Recut is a replacement to my original DVD of L.A. Confidential but it is damn close.
I rate this edit 9/10. I look forward to seeing Neglify’s future fanedits.
Review by Gatos — December 10, 2011 @ 4:42 am
L.A. Confidential has long been on my rather shameful list of movies I somehow missed seeing, but knew I needed to. So with Neglify’s release I finally had the kick to go out and buy the film and watch it so I could see what this FEOTM winner had done.
I should first start with my brief evaluation of the original. Midway through watching it I turned to my wife and pondered what in the world Neglify would edit in this as we were both enjoying the film immensely. It’s simply a great movie. When the film finally closed I suspected at least one aspect that he’d cut, but not enough to qualify as an edit on the site, let-alone earn a victory in the competition. The original is a great flick, but ultimately if its intention was to be in the mold of the classic Film Noir’s, it failed at the ending. Simple rule of a film noir, if the hero gets what he wants at the end of the film, something has gone wrong.
I don’t know their intentions for making the film, but that was my only issue with it. But once in awhile a happy ending is nice.
So then on to Neglifies edit.
Video Quality
First I must say that I watched his V2 with an improved source, and watched it on a 52″ plasma and my brand spanking new Sony BD player. I had originally watched the film on BD, and I have to say that Neg’s edition holds up spectacularly. Some of this perhaps is the upscaling of my BD player, but the image was beautiful. 10/10
Audio Quality
My rear speakers are currently on the fritz so I didn’t get the full 5.1 treatment, but even still audio was sharp and clear. 10/10
Video Editing
Being that the theatrical is a good movie in its own right there was not a massive amount of cutting necessary for this film, but when done, it was done seamlessly. If I hadn’t seen the original first, I’d have never spotted a single edit. Great work from a first-time faneditor. 10/10
Audio Editing
Likewise, audio was smooth. Transitions were invisible. 10/10
Overall Story
Here is the real question, what of his choices? How does this edit execute on the editor’s goals and how does it stack up against the original? Overall Neglify has not done anything stunning with this edit. His cuts were very simple, but effective at helping steer this film to being more classic Noir. I had no issues with the Bud/Lynn storyline. In this new version Bud’s character is more flat and lacks depth, but this is not a terrible thing and more one of preference.
The edit succeeds in making the movie more classic Noir and I would recommend to any fan of the original. This doesn’t replace my original copy by any means, and it comes down to more of do I want to see the happy ending or the more classic Noir ending.
This is a really tough call for me because by the numbers, Neglify had done everything right. His technical execution is flawless and his story improvement leaves no holes and achieves his goals. But the edit itself is exceptionally straightforward without doing anything drastic. It doesn’t seem fair to penalize Neglify for tackling an movie that doesn’t actually start out horrible.
In terms of Story I can only give this an 8/10 simply because it doesn’t make a dramatic change in the film.
Overall Score
However, when looking at the full execution in terms of editing quality and technical quality I have to give the entire edit overall 9/10
Great job!
Review by L8wrtr — January 17, 2012 @ 9:59 pm
It had been a long time since I had watched my copy of this one, but I always liked L.A. Confidential despite a couple of gripes. Anyway, here we go:
***SPOILERS***
Story Editing:
Most of the cuts I didn’t even notice, and the rest I didn’t miss at all (the extra love scenes, mainly). Not much was changed story-wise, though. I love the new ending. I really thought it was lame that Bud survived that shootout and that Lynn went back to him after he hit her. I’m glad that’s no longer here. Your edit ends right when it should and fits with the tone of the rest of the film.
Score: 9 out of 10.
Video Editing/Quality:
No issues in your cuts at all. I did notice a little glitch in the quality once or twice when watching it, but nothing major.
Score: 9 out of 10
Audio Editing/Quality:
Your transitions were nicely done and I never noticed any mistakes. Everything sounded good to me.
Score: 10 out of 10
Great idea, perfect execution of the edits, even though they weren’t very drastic. I enjoyed this more than the original.
Final Score: 9 out of 10
Review by DriggyDriggs — February 9, 2012 @ 11:32 pm