L.A. Confidential maintains narrative integrity, prioritizing plot, character development, and atmosphere over modern identity politics. Characters are defined by their actions and complex motivations, not checkbox diversity casting or representation quotas. There’s no obvious preference for ideology over storytelling, making the film refreshingly non-woke by today’s standards.

The film depicts 1950s Los Angeles, engaging honestly with masculinity, authority, and institutional flaws. While it doesn’t present an idyllic view of the past, it doesn’t go out of its way to undermine traditional values or mock faith, family, or classic morality, instead offering gritty realism without revisionist overtones.

L.A. Confidential shows a spectrum of worldviews: the flawed but determined hero, corrupt authority, and the complexity of human nature. It doesn’t villainize entire groups or force present-day ideology. Internal moral debates and pluralism are present, giving the story more nuance than the typical modern ideological monologue.