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In the neo noir crime film LA Confidential (1997), Sid meets officer Jack on the set of the Badge of Honor show:

Sid: Reynolds is acey-deucey, not to mention broke. I'm getting him to fuck the DA for 100 bucks. That's twice the 50 you got for wrecking his career.

What does he mean with that? Why did he give Jack $50 for wrecking Reynolds's carreer?

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  • Did he actually say 'acey-deucy', or AC/DC? It's a euphemism I've not heard before.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jun 1, 2020 at 17:56
  • @Tetsujin it's slang for bisexual
    – Nelson Blake
    Commented Jun 1, 2020 at 17:58
  • I know exactly what AC/DC means, but I've never heard acey-deucy. I presume it's US slang, not international, in that case.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jun 1, 2020 at 17:59
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    @iandotkelly & Steve-O - I just grabbed a copy of the movie, with subs. It is indeed what he actually says quite clearly & the subs back that up. I'm assuming it was a late re-write to de-emphasise the target character's sexual preference, make the line a bit more throw-away than overtly anti-gay. An early copy of the script I found had quite different dialogue at that point, & referred to him as 'queer', so I can only assume the writers pulled it back a bit & used a euphemism we could guess easily without actually saying it out loud. Timestamp around 1:08:30 if anyone wants to double-check.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jun 2, 2020 at 10:56
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    Great research !
    – iandotkelly ♦
    Commented Jun 2, 2020 at 11:47

2 Answers 2

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You might remember that Reynolds is the guy from the beginning of the film (or one of the earliest scenes) that introduces Jack Vincennes and the whole "dirty" Hollywood setting. Jack arrests him for drug abuse. But not only that, Jack also has a deal with Sid where he gives him information about such scandals in the high society so Sid has "good" stories for the Hush Hush Magazine.

So the arrest, but even more so the yellowpress article the enabling of which Jack apparently got $50 for, is what destroyed Reynolds's carreer and made him in turn do another shady job for Sid. And this is ultimately also part of why Jack feels guilty and concerned about Reynolds and why he drives out to the motel to see if he's okay, finding his dead body.

(I don't blame you for missing that, though, it also took me repeated watching to get that connection. It helps that I've seen the movie a thousand times since.)

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Actually I think that the true reason why Vincennes feels remorse about Reynolds' setup is because Vincennes is gay himself.

Go back and look at the eye contact interaction he has with the 'Badge of Honor' star actor at the press conference (where Sid prepares the setup). The actor sees Vincennes in the room, smiles at him and discretely winks at him. Vincennes smiles back and makes a sign that seems to be a private joke. The interaction feels intimate, as if they shared more that a professional relationship. It's subtle, but it caught my eye.

At first I thought that Vincennes was feeling remorse about ruinning a random kid's life. But that doesn't seem like a strong enough reason to try and stop the plan for a man like him. After all, he didn't have a problem setting up Reymolds at the begining of the movie for a bag of weed, just to get $50 and a picture in the press...

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  • Interesting point indeed! After pondering on this yet again, I found myself wondering about that, too.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Jun 16 at 10:54

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