User Reviews

Like many others I remember when this film came out because the anticipation for many of us was so great as two of our finest actors in their prime were in the same film. I think I felt like many others when I walked out of the theater thinking that I had not viewed one of the great films of all times but one with an interesting story with some truly wonderful scenes between the two lead actors. Story is of course about two brothers in post war Los Angeles where the body of a hooker is found in a field cut in half. Detective Tom Spellacy (Robert Duvall) is covering the case and during his investigation the hookers clients have ties with the Catholic church. Tom's brother is Monsignor Desmond Spellacy (Robert DeNiro) who is a priest that is better at conducting business deals for the church instead of saving souls.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

Desmond is in the middle of a land deal with the church and it's benefactor Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning) but he has a history of corruption with Tom who was a bagman years earlier. With all that is happening Desmond now starts to question his role as a priest and what his function is in the church.

This film is directed by Ulu Grosbard who does a pretty good job of recreating old Los Angeles and he paints a fairly effective look at corruption in both the police force and the church. This is not a great film and it's mostly due to the script that never really comes across as totally believable. Durning is suppose to be dying but he looks fairly healthy and when he tries to fight Duvall he loses his cough and is breathing pretty well. Also, I was never convinced of why the hooker was murdered in the first place. Was it to keep her quiet? No character in this film seems like someone who would be involved in something like that, even Durning's character. While the story is at best leaky it's enhanced greatly by the performances of DeNiro and Duvall. The most wonderful scenes in this film are the uncomfortable silences that these two create when they're trying to communicate with each other. These two brothers have always had a difficult time expressing themselves to each other but the murder case seems to be an act of salvation for both of them. Even though Durning's character is not especially well written he does have one very good scene where he is in confession and tells DeNiro that he's a hypocrite. It's a remark that hits the bullseye and DeNiro knew it. While the story is shaky the dialogue is actually well written and DeNiro does a splendid job of being a priest and reciting Latin. This is a film that was to easily forgotten and watching Duvall and DeNiro together is absolutely mesmerizing.

True Confessions, with a screenplay by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, is a movie with a split personality. Half of it is a skewering look at pride and ambition in the Catholic Church, where the desire to build orphanages and schools is too easily transformed into rubbing shoulders with the powerful and the sleazy, where a young monsignor is the smooth arm of the cardinal, extracting money from the rich, making sure high awards go to those who contribute and who is accustomed to his usual lunch of a rob roy with a twist and a large shrimp cocktail at exclusive restaurants. The other half is the story of a gruesome murder of a young woman whose torso, cut into two pieces, is found in a Los Angeles field. This part also is the story of the detective who investigates the crime and the tawdry world of prostitution and bribes he operates in. Any chance that the monsignor and the detective are brothers? Any chance that we're supposed to draw parallels between the two worlds the brothers operate in? Nope.

Robert De Niro plays Monsignor Des Spellacy. He's helped transform the Los Angeles archdiocese under the knowing eye of Cardinal Danahan. He raises vast amounts of money on the golf courses and he's not above manipulating a church raffle. One of the men he deals with is the wealthy, aggressive Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning), a heavy contributor and a man eager for lucrative building contracts and high Catholic awards. Robert Duvall plays L. A. Homicide detective Tom Spellacy, long estranged from his brother. Tom is a cop who started out as a bagman for pimps, changed his ways, isn't above ignoring small payoffs. He has an intense dislike for both Amsterdam and what he believes is the hypocrisy of the Church.

The movie takes us to the tawdriest parts of 1948 Los Angeles, where there's usually no percentage in finding the killers of prostitutes. "You know who we're going to pick up on this one?" says Frank Crotty to Tom, his partner. "Panty sniffers, weenie flashers, guys who beat their hog on the number two bus, guys who fall in love with their shoes. Know how we're going to break this case? A couple of years from now, we'll pick up someone running a red light. I killed the girl, he'll say. What girl, we'll say. The girl with the rose tattoo, he'll say. What girl was that, we'll say. This is a 9-to-5 stiff, Tom. No overtime." That all changes when Tom gets Jack Amsterdam in his sights.

We also learn the other side of that coin. When the Cardinal says he's nominating Des for appointment as an auxiliary bishop, he tells Des, "If you're lucky you'll find an ambitious young monsignor to do your dirty work for you." That's immediately after the Cardinal instructed Des to remove a fine old priest from a parish because the man had complained too often that the Church wasn't compassionate enough.

The two themes come together, but only barely. The murder mystery, which to me gives the movie its juice, just slowly peters out in a conclusion where the murderer seems to be an afterthought and newspaper headlines seem sufficient for retribution and redemption.

Although for me the movie is something of a disappointment, it's a fascinating one. True Confessions has a great look about it. The movie captures that same golden ambiance of Los Angeles corruption that Chinatown did. We move from pornographic studios in abandoned warehouses to elegant archdiocese offices, from ritzy restaurants to cathouses. Charles Durning as Amsterdam, Kenneth McMillan as Frank Crotty, Burgess Meredith as Father Fargo, Cyril Cusack as the Cardinal are each superb in their roles. Most of all, the dynamic between De Niro and Duvall is fascinating. In the face of Duvall's utter believability as Tom Spellacy, De Niro was smart enough to underplay. They give the movie far more energy than do the messages Didion and Dunne serve up.

If Didion and Dunne had simply concentrated on the murder and let the messages indirectly seep into our heads, I think they would have had a stunning film. But make no mistake, True Confessions with all its faults is still a lot of fun...but you'll need to be fond of stylish, grubby murder, post WWII Los Angeles and have a high tolerance for meaningful messages.

This movie seems like it is going to be great with De Niro as a busy young handsome competent monseigneur in 1947 LA....but it quickly deteriorates into skeleton scenes and irritating 40s detective style corny dialog--cynical one liners etc..(This kind of dialog needs to be delivered quick without blinking by the right actors Stanwyck or others and it works OK...not as done in this film.)

Nothing fleshes the plot out with excitement or suspense--in fact what exactly is the plot? Is it a murder mystery? A tough detective story? An insider view of the church?? Corrupt but basically good guy cops?? All these plot lines are fragmented and loose.

Duval is frankly irritating in this movie and looks and acts so different from De Niro that it is jarring whenever he enters a scene as his brother.

Where is the beef? It seems like there aren't enough people or large chunks of the story are missing. What is so captivating about a $5 hooker hotel?- What is the deal with the Chinese paying off the cops? Why did the madam commit suicide or was she murdered?? Why did she spend time in the pen for Duval? None of it is tied together.

You so hope that De Niro will get involved in an interesting story but there is no interesting story...there is a land developer who is corrupt but that is glossed over. A hooker/actress is killed and cut in two pieces but nothing much develops from that story. We find out De Niro gave her a ride in his car so that ruins his career...Why??

You end up not caring about any of these characters and they seem cardboard and thin. Duval and his ugly side kick are repulsive to watch. Duval gets angry and throws some punches at the property developer...the oblique involvement of the Property Developer in the girls death (she is sliced in two) is vague and leads no where--apparently he didn't kill the hooker just introduced her to someone who probably did.

DULL AND BORING

AVOID.

**SPOILERS** Driving out in the middle of the desert former LA detective Tom Spellack, Robert Duvall,goes to see his brother Desmond, Robert De Niro, who's the Monsignor of the New St. Mary's Abby. Tom is shocked to find out from Desmond that he doesn't have long to live and as the two talk over old times the movie goes back in time to L.A in the late 1940's when there was a sensational murder case that hit the headlines that Tom was in charge of the investigation. The movie "True Confessions" then instead of concentrating on this brutal Black Dalia-like hooker murder goes into a number of different directions that involves the two brothers with this sleazy southern California builder and former big time pimp Jack Amsterdam, Carles Durning.

The movie almost totally sways away from whats called the "Virgin Tramp" murder, as the L.A press coined it, that Tom is investigating. We then get to find out how both Tom and Desmond were involved with Amsterdam who's only connection with the dead hooker Lois Fazenda, Missy Cleveland, was that he was a costumer of hers. We also get to see Tom's old flame brothel madam Brenda Samuels, Rose Gregorio. Were told by her conversation with Tom that she took the rap for him some time ago that had her do a stretch in the can but what exactly she took the rap for is never explained? We also see both Tom and his partner Frank, Kenneth McMillan, being called over to Brenda's whore house where they find a well known priest, actually a Pastor, Father Mickey dead from a heart attack while engaging in sex with one of Brenda's girls.

It's then that both the police and the church cover up Father Mickeys unholy death in order not to embarrass the church which lead to the deceased Pastor getting a grand send off. Father Mickey's departure is follows by a huge Godfather-like wedding party, for one of Jack Amsterdam daughters, that Desmond attends. It's reviled by a number of people at the party that Desmon has been involved with Amsterdam for years in a number of shady deals for his church. Now, getting religious in his old age I guess Desmond want's to cut him loose but that's easier said then done.

The church not wanting to lose out on the millions of dollars that Amsterdam contributed, and still contributes, to it has Desmond transfered to a out of the way church in the middle of the desert, the New St Mary's Abby, to keep Amsterdam happy. Tom has now become obsessed in somehow pinning the Fazenda murder on him, in what seems like, just to get even with Amsterdam for having Desmond transfered. By now the movie "True Confessions" seems to get lost in not knowing what to concentrate on, the Fazerda murder or Jack Amsterdam unethical and criminal business dealings, and so do those of us watching it and trying to understand the story it's telling or trying to tell us.

The movie then shifts back to the Fazerda murder and we get to find out that she was a bit actress who got caught up with this porno film maker named Standard who may have been the one who murdered her but was killed in a car crash just hours after she was killed. With Tom finding Standard's studio in and abandoned US Army warehouse outside of L.A all the evidence is there to prove him being Fazerda's murderer. Still Tom goes crazily after Amesterdam which leads to the fact that Desmond himself was somehow involved with Fazerda by giving her a lift in his car outside the Del Mar race track the year before! It's never for a moment made to look like that Desmond's relations, if you can call it that, with Fazerda was nothing more then giving a hitch-hiker a free ride. But the movie as well as Amsterdam and Desmond's friend in the car with him that faithful afternoon Dan, Dan Flanders, makes it look like Desmond had a wild and hot sexual affair with Fazerda that eventually lead to her murder!

The movie goes on with a number of more confusing scenarios with Brenda killing herself with no real reason given other then she was again busted by the cops and Amsterdam who we find out is dying of cancer going to church and confessing his sins, in secret, to Desmond. Amsterdam at the same time uses words in the confession booth that are totally uncalled for in a house of worship! Amsterdam lets Desmond have it about his involvement with Fazerda which was nothing more then giving her a free ride back to town but made it sound, in his wild and obscene language, like he broke all of the Ten Commandments?

We now go back to the present as a both much older and wiser Desmond and Tom reminisce about the good old times that I feel they both would like to forget with Desmond taking Tom outside his Abby and showing him the plot of land that he reserved for his finial resting place. As the ending credits start rolling down the screen you start talking to yourself at home or, to the guy sitting next to you, in the theater in just trying to figure out what you saw on the screen and wonder if you were at all wide awake and sober when you saw it!

Ulu Grosbard's "True Confessions" scripted by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Dideon from his novel of the same name is a masterful film, one of the most under-rated movies of the nineteen-eighties. It's an exquisite character study, whose themes deal with corruption, the seduction of power, Catholic guilt, remorse and finally the need for absolution. Robert De Niro is Desmond Spellacy, an ambitious Monsignor of an Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles, and Robert Duvall is his brother Tom, a middle-aged hardboiled LAPD detective, investigating the brutal murder of a young would be actress. Both have a strongly developed sense of Catholic sin that binds them even when their contrasting personalities conflict. It is their scenes together, with all that desperately needs to be said and yet is not, despite the love they have for each other, that makes this one of the most brilliantly acted films of its time. While Los Angeles of 1947 is beautifully recreated, many critics misconstrued the film at the time of its release as being a latter day film noir murder mystery. It is not. The solving of the "Black Dahlia" style murder is only incidental to the plot. Central are the relationships between many of the characters and the victim, and how those relationships led to her death.

The film opens sixteen years after the murder in 1963. Duvall, retired from the force, visits his brother who was transfered to a threadbare parish in the desert years earlier because of the scandal. "I'm going to die, Tommy." Des tells him. "The arteries to the heart are shot." The scene then dissolves to 1947 to a magnificent cathedral with Des presiding over the wedding of Jack Amsterdam's daughter. Jack is a powerful construction contractor with a lifetime of misdeeds, now a pillar of the Catholic community and trying to buy his way into heaven by building Catholic schools. The dying Amsterdam (Charles Durning) taints all he comes in contact with, and personifies corruption, literally bringing it into the church, disrupting the ceremony with his incessant coughing while his daughter is already several months pregnant out of wedlock. The relationship between Amsterdam and Desmond will be a contentious point with the brothers. Unknown to Jack, years earlier Tom had acted as bag man for his payoffs to Vice and though busted for it was not indicted. His attempts to put Des straight about Jack are met with irritation and an unwillingness to hear the truth, because of his ambition to succeed the aging Cardinal, (Cyril Cusack) an appointment of which Jack has some say.

Jack's influence is felt even at LAPD. "Does he make you nervous, Frank?" Tom asks Frank Crotty (Kenneth Macmillan) after his slightly corrupt partner (he cheerfully accepts payoffs from local Chinese businessmen) insists that Amsterdam, despite, "Banging her", had nothing to do with the murder. Jack's hypocrisy, (he is made Catholic Layman of the year) and his disregard for the lives he destroys, (Brenda, one of his hookers (Rose Gregorio) commits suicide after Jack refuses to see her) will goat Tom to bring him in, having uncovered evidence it was Amsterdam who introduced the victim to the pornographer, who murdered her. Unfortunately Des also knew the victim, albeit only in passing. Jack's liaison with the church, Dan Campion, (Ed Flanders) is also facing ruin from the scandal that will ensue, (he was the first to have a sexual tryst with the victim) and tries to get Des to stop Tom's investigation, informing him that she was the hitchhiker they picked up on their way back from Santa Anita and if they go down Des will go with them. "You knew her too, Monsignor." "I knew her." Des replies. "You f**ked her."

Finally the film returns to 1963. For years Tom has carried the guilt that he ruined his brother's life and he needs his forgiveness. "It must have been hard, Des. It's my fault...I'm sorry." "No, Tommy you were my salvation, actually. You made me remember things I had forgotten. I thought I was someone I wasn't." Des consoles Tom he is unafraid of dying, that, "My bags are packed." Then in what they both know will be the last time the two brothers again attempt to connect. Both good yet touched by the same corruption: the sin of pride for Tom, ambition for Des, and both needed forgiveness. Reaffirming the love between them despite all that has happened, Des leads Tom to the plot he has set aside for himself and he hopes one day for Tom where they both may rest safe from worldly temptations. It is one of the most moving moments in the film. Requiescat in pace.

Post-war Los Angeles is nicely evoked in this story of two brothers -- Desmond Spellacy (Robert DeNiro) and Tom (Robert Duvall). Plenty of grand old gas-guzzling Fords. Vacant lots that are now undoubtedly buried under a Starbucks or a Nieman-Marcus. Five-dollar cat houses that smell like old paint.

And both DeNiro and Duvall do well by their several parts. DeNiro is thoughtful, reserved, and an efficient wheeler and dealer in the hierarchy of the Catholic church, a Monseignor in fact. Duvall is equally smart but more tempestuous. He's not much of a pragmatist, ripping off a Fat Cat's "Catholic Layman of the Year" breast ribbon, flinging it drunkenly away, and asking at a public gathering if the Fat Cat, Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning), was wearing it when he was "banging Lois Fazenda." Who is -- or was -- Lois Fazenda, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. She was a great big pain in the neck, a beautiful young woman who was careless enough to get herself murdered and then cut in half, with both parts distributed in a vacant lot. Duvall and the other detectives and reporters chuckle and make jokes as they check out the body parts.

In the course of his investigation Duvall turns up the fact that Lois Fazenda was a disappointed movie starlet who made some skin flicks and was subsequently butchered by the producer, who then committed suicide. She turned to hookery and was the close personal friend and sex toy of Jack Amsterdam, the Fat Cat whose financial favors DeNiro has been cultivating. DeNiro himself once met Lois Fazenda by accident, although he doesn't remember it until he's reminded of it. All this, of course, involves the church in the murder, upping the stakes all around. It puts Duvall in the position of having to investigate his own brother, his brother's Cash Cow, and the entire institution of the church.

There's still another way in which Lois Fazenda is a nuisance. Her case, although it involves a minimum of screen time and practically no suspense, is a heck of a lot more interesting than the story of intrigue between Fat Cat criminals and church finances. Lois Fazenda, modeled on the "Black Dahlia" murder, was the victim of a particularly barbaric crime -- yet her death is almost brushed off, the mystery given little attention, and the murderer's identity sloughed off with some two-bit comment about how he's dead now.

Instead of a notorious and still-unsolved case of illegal dumping, we're left with a wary relationship between two brothers who have taken different paths in life, and an exploration of how the Catholic church takes losing real estate deals off your hands so you get a tax write-off. The dicey relationship between Desmond and Tom is nicely drawn. (In "Mean Streets", DeNiro played the other, irresponsible friend.) But do we really need to see Charles Durning dancing an Irish jig? Far more gripping to see Duvall alone poking through the abandoned barracks where Lois Fazenda was sawed in half, and finding a bathtub covered with dried blood.

DeNiro looks the part of the manipulative priest. Duvall, though, has settled into his later mode of open-mouthed grins, nodding head, and meaningless chuckles (he he). There's an outstanding performance by Cyril Cusack as the rather worldly Cardinal who is philosophical about where the church's money is coming from. The score is elegiac and its theme nicely blends hints of the Spanish guitar and a sentimental Irish tune played on a wooden tenor recorder.

John Gregory Dunne, who died not long ago, was a fine and cynical writer. The problem is that in this screenplay he seems to need to fill us in on the secrets behind the rectory's closed doors. A powerful priest plays footsies with a louche real-estate mogul. What else is new? Dunne seems to have taken the same position that many Italian-American writers have taken with regard to the Mafia, trying to explain how things work because so many of us have it wrong. See, the Dons have wives and dogs and family values just like the rest of us. Or the way some Southern writers on the margin of history, Faulkner for instance, tried to clarify the issue of race relations for the rest of us. You Northerners think we hate all blacks but we don't. When they're nice, we're nice too. One of them taught me how to play the banjo as a child.

The narrative drifts off in two separate directions and holds them together by the thinnest of threads, while devoting most of its attention to the less captivating of the two stories. "The Brothers Spellacy" might have made a solid movie all on its own, drenched in ethnicity, and the final scene at the graveyard is quite moving, but this film is sawed in half.