One of the most powerful words in the critical vocabulary is "cliche." With it, a critic can dismiss entire bodies of work as being guilty of the highest sin in the creative doctrine: unoriginality. It's amazingly easy to do; "The Lost World" is cliche, but "Jaws" is not. "The Godfather, Part III" is a cliche of the original "Godfather." Quentin Tarantino's style is already a cliche, even though he's directed two films. The excessive use of "cliche" as the ultimate offense to the critical eye has turned the word into a synonym for failure.

But cliche can be a good thing. Not only that, but filmmakers unafraid to approach clich»s often can transform what has been dismissed as "overdone" into new and exciting work, making movies that take clich» and reinvent it for a new audience. Curtis Hanson has done this for crime noir with his "L.A. Confidential." Students of film history can gleefully count the familiar story elements and dialogue, but this movie stands up on its own as a revival of what once was dismissed as "cliche."

"Confidential" features an ensemble cast in a complex, wide-reaching story about crime and corruption in the Los Angeles detective force of the 1950's. Ed Exley (Guy Pierce) is a young lieutenant who becomes embroiled in solving the Nite Owl murder case, but the conclusions he initially develops are found to be frauds, covering up a huge network of corruption leading to the highest levels of local government. Aiding Exley in the investigation are Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), advisor for the detective show "Badge of Honor" and a figure as concerned about his public image as he is about solving crimes; and Bud White (Russell Crowe), a violent detective who isn't afraid to use physical abuse to get a confession and who falls in love with Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), a high-profile call girl who is drawn into the web of the murder investigation.

The recent transformation of the crime film into a kinetic roller-coaster (through films like "Pulp Fiction" and "Goodfellas") has made the slower and more thoughtful pace of traditional crime noir into a potential recipe for disaster. But Hanson embraces this slower style of film, taking the time needed for his characters to demonstrate complex relationships, and often allowing the sheer power of the human face on a silver screen to say more than any dialogue could reveal. It helps that the actors also seem more interested in creating interesting relationships than in shoot-outs and explosions. Kevin Spacey turns in another Oscar-worthy performance as a detective who is torn between maintaining a comfortable image and confronting a truth that may destroy that image. As always, his work seems effortless. Less successful are Guy Pierce, who conveys little sense of the complexities lurking beneath his character's pristine surface; and Danny Devito, who may as well have been playing the Penguin or Jimmy Hoffa's sidekick. His parts tend to bleed into one another rather quickly.

"L.A. Confidential" is a rich and stylized film in the tradition of great crime noir, where characters trick themselves into false hope then realize too late that their worst expectations are more likely than happy endings. But it also transcends the cliches of its genre to create a fulfilling experience on its own terms, built from the pieces of other crime dramas but ultimately becoming a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.