Inherent Vice is a down-and-dirty detective story set in Los Angeles, and the movie is about 1970 as much as it is about detecting anything.
In the confrontation, Mr. Komisarjevsky told Mr. Hayes that he "was not doing any of the dirty work," Detective Buglione said.
Mr Eastwood, famous for his roles in Westerns and the Dirty Harry detective films, said he had performed the manoeuvre before, but only "to practise".
But his dirty Dallas detective Joe Cooper, who has a lucrative sideline as a hitman, is arguably the best of the worst, out-sleazing his East Texas prosecutor in "Bernie" and out-stripping his Xquisite club manager in "Magic Mike".
"Most people think they're dirty," one current detective told me, describing the feeling among the cops.
She is the author of a nine-book series featuring Kathy Mallory, the female Dirty Harry of detective fiction.
It seems telling that in 2002 Denzel Washington became the second African-American man to win an Oscar for best actor playing a dirty Los Angeles police detective in the thriller "Training Day".
In the previous decade, Jennings had helped to make a film called The Untouchables for the BBC's current affairs series Brass Tacks about dirty dealings between detectives and London gangsters.
