"To Live and Die in L.A." (1985) Review
I was reading about the stars. Talked about how the stars are the eyes of god. I think it’s true, don’t you?
No, I don’t.
There’s an amazing power that films made by truly exceptional directors can wield. They can seem to contradict themselves as they go along, only to coalesce into something so much more than it initially appears. What appears to be two diametrically opposed ideas and executions can completely fit together, you just have to be incredibly smart about it.
To Live and Die in L.A. is one of those films. It begins as a film that appears to be the product of neural-network attempting to generate a 1980s cop vs. criminal film. You want drugs? You want counterfeit money schemes? You want buckets of neon lighting? You want a hotshot lead of the law? You want a psychopath criminal nemesis? You want a cutaway to an ill-defined dance group that might be an art piece? You want a soundtrack entirely composed by Wang Chung? And lastly, do you want one of the greatest car chases in movie history?
To Live and Die in L.A. provides all of those thrills and the piles of sleaze that come with all of it, except there’s something running underneath the surface of the entire film, a cruel layer of reality. These characters may think they exist in a world where they can be invincible avatars driven by their desires, but the blunt end of shotguns have a way of reminding you that these are human beings, and they are terribly mortal. Which means that despite their attempts to exist in the fast lane, you’re left with a horrible question:
If these people exist in a real world, how much horror do they leave in their wake?
Two of these people are Agent Richard Chance (William Petersen) and Eric Masters (Willem Dafoe). Agent Richard Chance is a member of the U.S. Secret Service, and his close-to-retirement partner Agent Jim Hart (Michael Greene) has been blown away by Eric Masters and left in a dumpster. Masters is a money counterfeiter of the highest caliber, and completely unafraid of the consequences that come from any of his actions.
And in this way, Masters and Chance are exactly the same. Chance is hellbent on catching Masters as retribution for Hart’s murder, and will do anything to stop him. Tell me if you’ve heart that one before.
Except that director William Friedkin, the mastermind behind The French Connection and The Exorcist, understands with complete clarity that these men are fundamentally the same. As the runtime goes along, it becomes impossible to actually root for Chance’s quest for retribution, and Masters isn’t any easier to root for.
Chance takes advantage of everyone around him. His new partner, Agent John Vukovich (John Pankow) is totally unprepared for what Chance is willing to do to catch his prize. His source of information on the underworld, Ruth Lanier (Darlanne Fluegel), is a woman that Chance has essentially trapped into being a source through some unspecified parole violation. They have something like a relationship, but it’s hollow. He uses her in the most literal sense imaginable.
As for Masters, his list of allies isn’t very long, especially when he’s not actively trying to kill them. His mule for moving counterfeit cash, Carl Cody (John Turturro), is caught between Masters ruthlessness and Chance’s schemes. His crooked lawyer, Bob Grimes (Dean Stockwell) is unsure if Masters will eventually come for him. The only seemingly untouchable presence in his life is Bianca Torres (Debra Feuer), a dancer who’s attraction (if any) to Masters is unclear.
The cast of this film is highly interesting, specifically for the timeframe. You might be thinking to yourself, “Wow, they got Willem Dafoe and John Turturro for this cool L.A. crime movie,” but keep in mind the release year of 1985. This was only a handful of years into Willem Dafoe’s career, same for John Turturro. The fact of the matter is that due to this film’s action scenes, the budget for casting known actors was significantly reduced, and the film relied on casting “nobodies” in major roles. It just so happens that William Friedkin managed to pick some huge damn winners in the process. Even this early in his career, Dafoe absolutely rules at playing a criminal psycho, and Turturro is just as amazing at playing a hapless lackey as he’s ever been.
They’re definitely the big highlights here, though William Petersen is good at playing Chance, managing to balance the “cool guy” swagger with his cartoonish disregard for everyone around him. By far my favorite supporting performance falls to Dean Stockwell (Rest in Peace) as Bob Grimes. Stockwell was a character acting legend, and you will have no problem believing him as a highly intelligent lawyer who works in the criminal underworld.
(Side Note: Wang Chung did the music for this movie entirely, and while you might think that would have cost a lot, Wang Chung’s rise to fame was partially because of this film, before its release they were not well-known yet, and William Friedkin personally selected them for the music. The man had a way of scouting future talent.)
In this film, crime is an ouroboros. Masters and Chance take bigger and bigger bites out of everyone around them in one way or another, and they manage to meet in the middle by the film’s end.
But this is where the contradiction exists in To Live and Die in L.A., and it’s a fascinating one. They make these men’s lives look awesome. Stylized lighting and over-the-top soundtrack choices make these guys lives feel like living music videos where everyone else is merely a prop for their existence. Even as they’re surrounded by characters that are able to easily identify the ways in which these men are becoming increasingly unhinged, the film spends the grand majority of its runtime being a slickly-made and thoroughly badass action movie.
This film is probably most famous for its legendary car chase, and it is a staggering achievement of action filmmaking. Made in an entirely pre-digital era, it’s damn-near 9 minutes of vehicular chaos, and knowing that everything you’re looking at is more-or-less real is guaranteed to spike your anxiety to the limit. However, the context for the car chase itself is as unhinged as everything else that comes before it. The chase is a direct result of Chance’s inability to take any true responsibility for his actions, and the consequences that emerge from the chase set the stage for the film’s master stroke in the finale.
It is killing me that I can’t talk about the final scenes of To Live and Die in L.A., but suffice to say they completely shocked me to the core. The film doesn’t pull the carpet out from under you much as it yanks the carpet so hard your skull flies directly into a brick wall. The tone flips 180 degrees as the film harshly reminds you that these characters are in fact human beings who can be hurt, and that when they’re badly hurt there’s no final speeches or nice one-liners to neatly cap things off. The film becomes genuinely subversive, luring in the audience with real thrills and then throwing cold water on you, and not right at the very end. When the cold water hits, there’s still plenty of time on the movie’s clock before events fully wrap-up.
All of these scenes are lensed by the great German cinematographer Robby Müller (well, most of these scenes, Müller did not supervise the car chase, he had no experience with scenes like that and wasn’t keen on spending six weeks filming 9 minutes of a movie for a style of scene he had no idea how to film). The movie is frequently gorgeous, whether it’s lovingly sun-drenched view of L.A. or the entire process of counterfeiting money.
The area where this film is a mixed bag is the sound design. There’s some very noticeable ADR lines throughout, and the sound mix feels incredibly weird in certain scenes. You’ll be watching characters talk, and while their lips are moving the right way, it does not sound like their voices were recorded in the environment they’re currently standing in. It doesn’t ruin the movie, but it’s jarring enough to take you out of some moments here and there, especially since so many of these lines are from lead actors in the film.
The music… As someone who proudly has “Dance Hall Days” and “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” in their Spotify rotation, I personally find the soundtrack entirely composed by Wang Chung to be a complete blast. Though, if the idea of a notoriously 1980s-sounding band composing the entire soundtrack for a movie sounds repellent to you, I can’t say this movie is going to win you over. There are some movies from the 1980s that feel timeless and untethered from the decade they were made in. This is not one of those films.
One last thing about technical aspects: The make-up for gunshots in this movie is grotesquely well done. It’s exceptional to the point where one particular gunshot makeup was so realistic that I’m not entirely sure how the hell they did it. This is not just squibs going off at random, real thought has been put into how these characters are shot and killed, recalling the kind of methodical gore that Friedkin employed for The Exorcist when Regan goes to the hospital and is given a cerebral angiography. Great craftsmanship, though its not used a ton and is usually shown without lingering on the gore. Too much, at least.
To Live and Die in L.A. is a fascinating variation of the subversive action movie. It subverts by holding its cards to the chest for as long as it can, and once the cards fall and the chips scatter, the film won’t leave your memory anytime soon. But before it does that, it provides amazing foot chases, prison intrigue, assassinations, and the aforementioned car chase, soundtracked by Wang Chung and performed by a crew of capable actors of all kinds. In short, it rules and it will kick your ass.
Assuming you can deal with Wang Chung.
