Tue 14 Jun 2016
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. (1985).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[4] Comments
TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. MGM/United Artists, 1985. William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer, John Turturro, Darlanne Fluegel, Dean Stockwell. Screenplay by William Friedkin, based on the novel by Gerald Petievich. Director: William Friedkin.
By the time To Live and Die in L.A. ended, I had lost track of the number of times characters had double-crossed one another in this neo-noir police procedural. Directed by William Friedkin, this is a visually captivating, synth-pop driven journey in Los Angeles’s back alleys and its concomitant back room dealing. From warehouses to freeways, from Beverly Hills to San Pedro, the movie presents an off kilter portrait of two Secret Service Agents pushed to the limits in their quest to take down an infamous counterfeiter.
When Agent Richard Chance (William Petersen) learns that notorious counterfeiter Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe) is behind his partner’s murder, he decides that he’s quite literally willing to do whatever it takes to take Masters down. That means cheating, stealing, and killing. Whatever it takes.
Soon enough, Chance has fellow Secret Service Agent Jon Vukovich (John Pankow) by his side, bending and breaking all the rules in the book. The two agents devise a scheme by which they will steal money from an illicit diamond dealer and utilize the cash to conduct their own off the book sting operation against Masters. What happens next is right out of the noir playbook. Not only does their plan go awry, it goes awry in the worst possible way. This leads Chance and Vukovich down a deadly path leading to an ultimate showdown with Masters and his henchman.
While the plot will keep you guessing, the film isn’t necessarily a plot-driven work. Indeed, the movie is as much a visual tour of the seedy underbelly of LA as it is a crime story, with scenes and sequences amplified by soundtrack composed by the 1980s pop band Wang Chung. The opening sequence in which the President’s motorcade pulls into the Beverly Hilton, for instance, is well served by the title song, lending the movie a dramatic sense of place from the get go.
Like the cars in the motorcade, the film is a journey into a fantastically noir vision of a counterfeiting mastermind and the men who ultimately bring him down. Look for the incredible chase sequence, one that rivals anything you’ve seen in Bullitt (1968) or The French Connection (1971). It’s a thrilling sequence in a remarkably effective and gritty crime film.
—
June 14th, 2016 at 2:05 pm
Great visualization of the book by Gerald Petievich, neo noir at its best, at once garish and gritty. It’s a classic of its kind and neglected to boot to some extent.
A really impressive movie in a genre that too often, in that period, didn’t impress half as much as it should.
June 15th, 2016 at 10:38 pm
I’m a bit surprised at the lack of comments on this movie. It’s a Grade A production from start to finish: a tough hardboiled story with lots of twists, fine cinematography and a driving musical score, and an absolutely terrific chase scene taking place on a crowded LA freeway — against the traffic! If you’ve never seen it, you have a real treat in store for you.
June 16th, 2016 at 1:27 pm
Steve,
I’m surprised too, and wonder if so few people saw this. In many ways it is the equal of genre classics like THE FRENCH CONNECTION and BULLET, and in some ways superior thanks to Petievich’s connection.
I rank this as one of the best neo noir’s of its time, a film I would comfortably put on the same shelf with Michael Mann’s HEAT.
Surely the three of us can’t be the only ones who have seen it and appreciated it.
June 17th, 2016 at 10:37 am
You can add me in as someone that really likes this film. I have seen it at least a dozen times over the years. To me I think this movie really captures what a lot of places in LA really felt like. Visited a dozen times or so throughout the 90’s, a couple of times my friend and I got lost in bad neighborhoods searching for out of the way used record stores, missed on-ramps at 3Am in dodgy neighborhoods after the club we were at closed…, it all ties in to the feel of movie in my subconscious!