To Live and Die in LA Review

 

To Live and Die in LA

Director: William Friedkin

Stars: William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Fruer, Darlanne Fluegel, John Turturro, Robert Downey Sr & Dean Stockwell.

Running Time: 116 Mins

Release: 7^th January 1986

The film is a about a US Secret Service Federal Agent Richard Chance (Petersen) who plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with Rick Masters (Dafoe) a artist and counterfeiter who killed his partner Jim Hart (Michael Greene), Chance is willing to break the law to get Masters along with his hesitant new partner John Vukovich (Pankow).

As there is a lot of actors in this i'll first comment on the acting.

Most people recognises Petersen from CSI, but before that he did movies albeit only a few of them and the most famous two are this and Manhunter which just came out the year after this (To Live was released in 85' in the states).

Richard Chance is a hot headed adrenaline junkie who enjoys life and is willing to take risks, he loves his work and Petersen plays the part very well indeed. Even though he's a lawman he's willing to break it to get what he wants be it bribing his informant Ruth (Fluegel), stealing money and driving down the wrong side of a busy highway. He does not seem to care about anyone at all, he has no connection to them aside from work, almost everything he does is for work, he lives for the job. He seems detached from the people that surround him It's a terrific performance and Chance has some of the best quotes in the film.

He is partnered with John Vukovich, an agent who's not used to the antics of an agent like Masters and he's much more hesitant and by the book, it's the old buddy cop chestnut aside this is not a buddy cop film and Masters and Vukovich are not really friends, if Chance had it his way he would go it alone. I have never seen Pankow in a film before so this is the first time that I have seen him in a film and it's a brilliant performance and feels very realistic and his reactions in the iconic car chase scene is perfect, it really shows he's never been in that situation before.

Willem Dafoe, excels at playing any role especially the villain, forget Spiderman that's a pantomime role, I saw him in Wild at Heart and he was incredibly nasty, sleazy, gross, demented and occasionally funny as Bobby Peru, he stole the show. His role as Masters is much more controlled and sane than that of Peru and I find him even better in this.

Rick Masters is a brilliant artist who finds his skills work perfectly in the field of making counterfeit money and if he's art is not perfect in his vision he'll burn it and with money if he gets it back and it's already been handled he'll burn it. Masters is incredibly intelligent and charismatic & is all about the business and how to play his hand in his favour always looking at the situation in the long run rather than the immediate future. He's a very ruthless businessman and if any of his clients try to screw him over or don't pay him,they are quickly dealt with, no one f**ks with Masters. Like Masters says 'The fact is if you don't come up with the front money, your not for real.

Like Chance he has no real connection to the people around him, they are all business partners and he's artificial like him, but he does not enjoy the life, he enjoys the thrill of the hunt, the chase and almost getting caught, his life is routine and he's impassive he records sex tapes with his 'girlfriend' Bianca Torres (Fruer) and expresses no emotion within them or with her, when you see them on camera together. He's also sexually ambiguous. He steals every single scene he's in and he's the perfect foil for Richard Chance and now Dafoe has secured himself to be one of my favourite actors.

In supporting roles we have Ruth (Fluegel), Chance's informant and sex slave who works at a counter of a strip bar whom Chance threatens with revoking her parole if she holds out on him, she's desperate to get away from LA and she's had enough of Chance squeezing her. Masters 'Girlfriend' Bianca (Fruer) is in a completely different relationship with Masters she is in it for business and the sex they have is just a part of there business relationship and she's just as ruthless as Masters, a female version of him and she's very easy on the eyes just as Fluegel is.

This film also features John Turturro, an absolutely fantastic actor as Masters friend and criminal associate Carl Cody, he's less intelligent than Masters but just as crafty and what he says in the prison phone with Masters is just piss in the wind but absolutely brilliant he says it with absolute conviction and when Chance meets him to give him an offer to lower his sentence is pure class and steals the scene I love the line 'if your looking for a pigeon, go to the park'. He also features in

the brilliant airport chase scene.

Dean Stockwell, an actor whom I have not heard of before plays Masters slimy attorney Bob Grimes, of whom Vukovich and Chance contact undercover as businessmen to make a deal with Masters to bag him. He's fantastic and like Masters he's looking out for himself. We also have Robert Downey Sr (yes Jr's father) as Chance's thorn-in-the-side superior Thomas Bateman.

Friedkin has done a stunning job filming this, i've never seen a Friedkin film in full before, though I have seen some of The French Connection and I really should revisit, I have not seen The Exorcist nor his recent film Killer Joe.

There's a lot of brilliant scenes in this film and among my favourites are the counterfeit scene in which we see Masters make fake notes it's brilliantly well executed and I know Friedkin aimed for top accuracy on what you see, there's no dialogue at all in this scene it's just Masters making notes and it's fantastic, the chase scene in the airport with Chance chasing Carl is amazing and it has that amazing piece playing in the background if you have seen the trailer you know what I mean, I was a bit disappointed that it was not used as much as I would of liked it to have been, personally.

Of course I cannot forget the audacious, realistic, taught, thrilling, edge-of-your-seat-suspense car chase it's amazing and it was all filmed and it took six days to film and I was really surprised with the amount of shots used to show the action and I loved how it just kept building up the ante till they got away, I cannot say any more without spoiling it.

I have mixed feelings on the soundtrack, some part of me likes it and some parts of me don't. It's done by an 80's band whom i've never heard of called Wang Chung. Being honest I don't much like the actual pop songs in the film but I love the instrumentals and the synth tracks they are perfect for the film.

I was really surprised by this film, it was not completely what I was expecting from seeing the trailer but I absolutely loved it, it's incredibly well acted with Dafoe stealing the show, great dialogue and shot beautifully with great themes going throughout one of the biggest being counterfeit itself in the lead characters life, it demands repeat viewings to get it completely and I cannot end this review without saying it has one of the ballsiest ending I have seen for a film and Hollywood would never dare to do such an ending again, I highly recommend this film it's a brilliant, character rich, taught action thriller.