Dudley Smith is a veteran captain in the L.A.P.D., and a consummate political animal. He has developed and maintains a network of officers who work on his behalf inside the Department; he recruits Bud White (Russell Crowe) for this purpose. He uses White to beat up out-of-town gangsters trying to come in to grab territory after Mickey Cohen (Paul Guilfoyle) is incarcerated for tax evasion (this story line is based on the activities of the Hat Squad , a team of detectives who performed this function in the 1950s, also depicted in Mulholland Falls ). Dudley is ostensibly doing this to keep organized crime out of L.A., but he has a more sinister purpose which ultimately leads to White, Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) and Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) aligning against him.