Wings Hauser – that name alone is dynamite – was a semi-popular lead actor in entertaining and unscrupulous B-movies of the eighties and early nineties. He appeared in two really great movies ("Vice Squad" and "The Siege of Firebase Gloria") but the vast majority of the titles on his repertoire are long-forgotten trash flicks of questionable quality. Still, he has a handful of dedicated fans (yours truly included) that attempt to track down and watch every movie he every starred in. For "Living to Die" he even worked himself up to be director! Good job, Wings! Well, almost a good job, actually, because there are quite a few shortcomings here. Like the title itself, the movie is pretty meaningless, cheap and campy. The plot turns and twists like a pretzel and contains all the typical ingredients of a raunchy B-movie of its era, like extortion, hookers, betrayal, gritty striptease clubs and giant Las Vegas neon lights. There's plenty of action, but not a trace of continuity or logic. During the intro sequences, Nick Carpenter is still an (honest?) cop in Los Angeles, but after the credits all the action takes place in Vegas and the events of the intro are never mentioned anymore. Suddenly Nick is an ex-cop who fills his days with gambling and drinking J&B Whiskey. He's called in by an acquaintance, the rich and incredibly arrogant Edward Minton, because some amateur blackmailer (Arnold Vosloo) wants a million dollar in exchange for keeping the bizarre death of a prostitute secretive. Nick is supposed to meet with the blackmailer, but everyone he meets gets killed before his eyes. He then discovers that the prostitute is still alive, but falls in love with her himself and comes up with a couple of really stupid plans. I honestly can't refer to "Living to Die" as a good film, but at least I was never bored! There are two things that make the film worthwhile and memorable, namely the impeccable breasts of Darcy DeMoss and the completely unconventional and seemingly random climax. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen such a bizarre, illogical and unexpectedly sudden ending in a film of this kind. It almost seems like they ran out of budget and/or inspiration and just abandoned the whole thing.
