To Live and Die in L.A.

Admittedly, To Live and Die in L.A. was not well-received by many critics when it was released in 1985. I believe it was because the movie was ahead of its time. Back then, one would have naturally expected an action movie that clearly defines the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. But it would be different in this film.

Without giving too much away, the main cops who are supposedly good guys are unethical. Richard Chance makes it clear that he doesn't care how he would catch the money counterfeiter Rick Masters. But as he tries to attain this goal, he runs into trouble, including a car chase that leads to a drive down the wrong side of the Los Angeles freeway! (Don't ever try that stunt!)

The way I see it, To Live and Die in L.A. is an underrated classic.

Secret service agents Jimmy Hart and Richard Chance (William Petersen) thwart an Islamic terrorist during a Presidential visit. Hart has a few days left before retirement. He tries to investigate and gets killed by counterfeiter Eric Masters (Willem Dafoe). Chance vows to take him down. He gets John Vukovich (John Pankow) as his new partner. They catch Masters' delivery boy Carl Cody (John Turturro). Masters' lawyer Bob Grimes (Dean Stockwell) says Cody has to do 3 years. Chance's C.I. Ruth Lanier (Darlanne Fluegel) directs them to lawyer Max Waxman. Waxman was Cody's last stop and Masters suspects he set them up. Masters and his girlfriend Bianca Torres (Debra Feuer) go to demand repayment and ends up killing him. Chance steals Waxman's black book as he becomes more morally corrupt in order to take down Masters.

William Friedkin delivers a slick thriller of amoral cops and immoral everyone else. I love Dafoe's montage of counterfeiting. Friedkin delivers so many great action scenes. The wrong way car chase is the highlight and probably the height of his action work. It is so slick and so stylized that I accept the avant-garde artsy stuff. It fits into the movie. It also has an early bungee jump on film. This is one of the most fun 80s action thriller filled with relatively unknown actors at the time. I can't help but think of Michael Mann who was showrunning Miami Vice TV show at the time.

Despite a confusing (or irrelevant?) opening segment, To Live and Die in L.A. is an authentic and somewhat disturbing crime film. In fact, some of the film is so harrowing and caustic it evokes almost horror-like inspiration. As you might have heard by now, it involves one of the finest car chase scenes ever put to film.

The film follows a couple of Secret Service agents for the National Treasury as they try to track down a counterfeiter. As the movie rolls on, it becomes clear that these agents are pretty shady in the way they gleam information and that the ties between crime and justice are actually quite close. I know, it sounds like an obvious plot, but the editing, pacing, characters and twists are all pretty unexpected or original. It is not nearly as cliché as it sounds.

The downsides to the movie could be some of the aesthetic choices: the neon colors are sweet (I think) but some of the soundtrack is just too grating. You REALLY feel like you're hopped up on speed after hearing the main theme for too long. It's done by Wang Chung, but I think Tangerine Dream would've created something much more provocative. Oh well. Also, I felt like one or two characters' stories were not really concluded properly. There was a minor hang-nail or two left at the end.

But all in all, this is a solid film. Very inspired, very dark, simultaneously exciting and depressing. Seriously, this movie is way more intensely real than anything Tarantino has tried to do. It may not actually be more violent per say, but the violence itself it much more effective and the social ties are far more believable. This junk is scary.

Worthy of the director of "French Connection," the pace of this set- in-LA action thriller immediately draws the view in and never lets up. A car chase in the best traditions of "Bullitt" and of Friedkin's own "French Connection" is centers the action, but the motivation of a rogue agent obsessed with the death of his partner, and clearly with his own death, are well- and credibly- drawn. The most sympathetic character in the story is not one of the principals. It is a female informer. An ex-con at the mercy of those on both sides of the law, she is callously exploited by all. Her feelings for Agent Chance are more implied than explicit, but they are believable as is his indifference to her as a person. This riveting film never lets your attention wander. Thanks to Friedkin, we are told, we are given a credible ending to this taut, tightly- wound thriller. An under-exposed, under-appreciated work; excellent for the genre.

When Friedkin went "back on the streets" in 1985 to make TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., he made a classic that will endure and that perfectly captures its 80's milieu.

I don't understand these idiots who complain how a film is "dated" by its music. Of course a film is "dated" by its specific elements, but so what. This superb film, which has an amazingly kinetic Wang Cheung score, is about a time (the mid-eighties) and place (L.A.) that is now history, and it is a punishing document.

The film works on many levels. Yes, it is about counterfeiting and superficial (re: counterfeit) relationships. It is about greed, survival, justice and morality. It is also about human beings using and laying to waste other human beings.

These powerful ingredients weave their way through a police procedural/action thriller plot that never stops to catch its breath and is pure cinema.

Willem Dafoe is totally engrossing as the film's villain, while William Peterson delivers a highly focused, tough turn. Dean Stockwell is also a stand-out as a crook lawyer and real cop Jack Hoar is quietly spectacular as Dafoe's mule.

And the film boasts one unbelievable car chase that has not been equaled since.

But LIVE AND DIE is also a film that expertly marries the visual to the aural and depicts a part of Southern California that has not been so credibly depicted before.

Dynamite!