Rollo Tomasi
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Rollo Tomasi is an imaginary character from the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential. While not a real person (even within the fictional movie), he is a metaphor for the sort of criminal who is able to completely get away with his crime.
Det. Lt. Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) earned the name "Shotgun Ed" and much prestige in the LAPD when he killed the suspects in the Nite Owl murders while they resisted arrest. However, he is willing to tear everything down when he realizes that his witness lied in her statement to implicate the suspects (who had kidnapped and raped her) in the murders. When he asks Sgt. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) about the case, Jack asks why Exley wanted to dig any further.
| “ | Rollo Tomasi... Rollo was a purse snatcher. My father ran into him off duty. And he shot my father six times and got away clean. No one even knew who he was. I just made the name up to give him some personality... Rollo Tomasi's the reason I became a cop. I wanted to catch the guys who thought they could get away with it. It was supposed to be about justice. Then somewhere along the way I lost sight of that | ” |
Rollo is Exley's motivation and essential to the plot when he discovers the corruption within the department and the connections between the police and organized crime. By contrast, Jack Vincennes admits to Exley that he has forgotten why he became a police officer – we've seen that he has become more interested in his burgeoning career as adviser to a TV show. Capt. Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) is eventually revealed to be the mastermind behind the plot – when he suddenly shoots Vincennes through the heart for knowing too much. Having an epiphany at this fatal revelation, Jack's last words to Dudley are "Rollo Tomasi", of which his murderer of course knows nothing. Dudley soon mistakenly asks Exley about Rollo, and Exley realises the truth: Jack's final act was tricking Dudley into revealing himself as the man behind the organized crime.
At the beginning of the movie, Exley was more of a politician than a law enforcement officer. He believed in justice and the law and would not plant evidence, beat out confessions, or shoot criminals simply to ensure that they would pay for their crimes. However, at the end he knows he must arrest Dudley but also knows Dudley is highly respected and will once again get away with it. Exley shoots him in the back, at last gaining the personal satisfaction of 'catching Rollo Tomasi'.
