Your review was a bit messy,and I had sometimes difficulties reading it, though I saw the film, but overall I`m with you. 
I don`t think that it is the best film of the year though, as 1997 was imo a great year for films (e.g. Fireworks, Lost Highway, Insomnia, Princess Mononoke, The Butcher Boy), but L.A. Confidential is already a bit of a classic, and viewers in the future will probably respond equally well to it as today`s do.

I didn`t find the story too complicated (watch "The Big Sleep" for that ), because it was the screenplay and the acting that impressed me most. Great performances throughout, though I must say that Russell Crowe has long before shown his acting abilities and star-potential (see "Romper Sromper" from 1992).
I wasn`t as "impressed" with the violence, (which is pretty graphic for a mainstream film) as wpqx, but it did help give a realistic touch the film was much in need of, and though the film maybe has a twist or two too many, and some Hollywood conventions, as the good guys have to win in the end, no matter how unbelievable it may appear, this didn`t realy bother me. 
But what struck me most of all during my first viewing was the camera, and in particular the use of lightning or color. The images had a high-definition slickness I had rarely seen until then, and they fit the mood of this glamorous/decadent time in L.A. perfectly. In the following years this "technique", style, or whatever you want to call it became common property as nowadays almost every Hollywood movie looks way to slick, and US films have almost totally lost the more grainy look, that was predominant at the beginning of the 90s.
Not a good basis for a fertile discussion, but what can I say... I still like the film very much, and I`ve seen it the fourth time already, and so does everybody else I know.