To Live and Die in LA **** (1985, William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer, Dean Stockwell, John Turturro, Darlanne Fluegel, Robert Downey Sr) – Classic Movie Review 9,612

William Petersen stars as a reckless, corrupt US Secret Service agent chasing the bank-note forger (Willem Dafoe) who murders his agent buddy, in director William Friedkin’s dazzling, terrifying 1985 non-stop neo noir action thriller To Live and Die in LA. 

William L Petersen is excellent as Richard ‘Richie’ Chance, a reckless, corrupt US Secret Service agent chasing Eric ‘Rick’ Masters (Willem Dafoe), the bank-note forger who murders his agent buddy Jim Hart (Michael Greene), in director William Friedkin’s dazzling, terrifying 1985 non-stop neo-noir action thriller To Live and Die in LA.

So basically, it’s the symbolically named Chance versus Masters. The young Petersen and Dafoe are up for the challenge, both scarily good, and actually quite scary, convincingly violent, quite casually and erratically. It’s hard to say who of the two characters is worse, but at least Masters is the real deal as the main criminal, where everybody else is fake, Chance a phony upholder of the law.

Another agent John Vukovich (John Pankow) is assigned to work with Chance as his new partner. They don’t exactly see eye to eye, with the weak and worried Vukovich scared of the consequences of Chance’s highly unlawful rogue methods. Needing funds to continue their obsessive pursuit of the counterfeiter, the two Secret Service agents pull a heist just to get $50,000 in cash that gets an FBI special agent killed, leads to mayhem on the motorway, and brings them into life-or-death collision with Masters (Dafoe).

Director Friedkin, pulling all the stops out, scores a bull’s-eye in aiming at an Eighties LA update on his 1971 The French Connection. Unfortunately, its extremes of amorality, violence and strong language seemed to put some people off at the time. But this is a remarkable film. In this desperate view of people living on the edge of the world, everything and everyone is corrupt and ugly. It’s a not a pretty picture, and inevitably it doesn’t end well.

Capturing the essence of LA’s underbelly, Friedkin films in sleazy dead-end locations (junkyards, warehouses, railroad tracks and strip clubs) with a Miami Vice-style gloss and, while lovingly taking care of the neo-noir elements, also ensures it really does deliver as an action movie, and there is even a car chase to rival the one in The French Connection. The spectacular smash-up wrong-way car chase on a Los Angeles freeway took six weeks and was one of the last scenes shot.

To Live and Die in LA is dark and scary, electrifying stuff, thrillingly directed by Friedkin and brilliantly shot by Robby Müller. To give a sense of immediacy, it is all shot quickly on location, often using the first take and sometimes fooling the actors into thinking they were rehearsing a scene when they were actually shooting a take.

Friedkin’s and Gerald Petievich’s screenplay is based on the 1984 novel by former US Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, who appears in the film in a cameo as a fellow Secret Service agent. The plot, characters and much of the dialogue come from Petievich’s novel, but Friedkin added such scenes as the opening terrorist sequence and the car chase, and has said that he, not Petievich, wrote the screenplay. You can see why Friedkin added the car chase, though strictly it isn’t necessary, just icing on the cake.

Wang Chung composes and performs the exciting original music soundtrack. It is special, and thrilling, and an essential ingredient in the film’s success, along with Robby Müller’s cinematography. Both elements are so Eighties, dating the film, but the film isn’t dated at all, apart from the women’s big hairstyles and men’s tight pants of course. It captures a zeitgeist. The nearest film to it for look and mood and spirit must be Manhunter, also with William Petersen, made the following year.

The main star support roles go to Debra Feuer as Bianca Torres, John Turturro as Carl Cody, Darlanne Fluegel as Ruth Lanier, Dean Stockwell as the corrupt lawyer Bob Grimes, all well cast and very effective. Also in the most interesting cast are Robert Downey Sr, Michael Greene, Christopher Allport, Jack Hoar, Valentin de Vargas, Dwier Brown, Gary Cole and Jane Leeves (credited twice in the end credits as Jane Leaves) as a sexy lesbian dancer.

The budget was $6 million and the box office $17.3 million.

Release date: November 1, 1985 (US).

Though it trailed behind Michael Winner’s Death Wish 3 on its opening weekend, it went on to make $17.3 million in the US and Canada, way more than its $6 million budget.

Friedkin was rightly happy with it: ‘I love the film. When I think of them in terms of success, I think of how close I came to my original vision of it. The two films where I came extremely close were To Live and Die in LA and Sorcerer.’ We’ll certainly give him To Live and Die in LA if not Sorcerer.

To Live and Die in LA is directed by William Friedkin, runs 116 minutes, is made by SLM Production Group, New Century Productions and United Artists, is released by MGM/UA Distribution Company (1985) (US) and United International Pictures (UIP) (1986), is written by William Friedkin and Gerald Petievich, based on Gerald Petievich’s novel, is shot by Robby Müller, is produced by Irving H Levin, is scored by Wang Chung. and is designed by Lilly Kilvert.

William Friedkin.

William Friedkin (August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023) directed The French Connection (1971), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and for himself Best Director, and The Exorcist (1973), for which he was Oscar nominated as Best Director.

The interesting cast are William Petersen as Secret Service Agent Richard ‘Richie’ Chance, Willem Dafoe as Eric ‘Rick’ Masters, John Pankow as Secret Service Agent John Vukovich, Debra Feuer as Bianca Torres, John Turturro as Carl Cody, Darlanne Fluegel as Ruth Lanier, Dean Stockwell as Bob Grimes, Steve James as Jeff Rice, Robert Downey Sr as Senior Secret Service Agent Thomas Bateman, Michael Greene as Secret Service Agent Jimmy Hart, Jack Hoar as Jack, Christopher Allport as Max Waxman, Valentin de Vargas as Judge Filo Cedillo, Dwier Brown as Dr Newman, Michael Chong as Thomas Ling / FBI Special Agent Raymond Fong, Gerald Petievich as Himself, Jane Leeves as Serena, Jacqueline Giroux as Claudia Leith, Dar Robinson as FBI Special Agent Conrad, Thomas F Duffy as Leon, and Gary Cole as Max.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9,612

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