To Live and Die in LA (1985)

To Live and Die in LA (R)

"West Coast Miami Vice"

A Secret Service agent's partner is gunned down by a nefarious counterfeiter, leading to a violent and reckless chase through Los Angeles alleyways and gutters that shows the very best director William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) had to offer in 1985s lush cop noir, To Live and Die in LA.

William Peterson, a year before his breakout in Michael Mann's Manhunter, grinds through a great role and performance as Agent Chance.  A bungie jumping, scarf and jersey wearing man's man, Chance bends the law (and a few ladies) to get the bad guy, no matter the danger to him or his fellow agents.  Trying to stay alive is his new partner Agent Vukovic played by John Pankow (TV's Mad About You best friend Ira).  They are up against a very young raw Willem Dafoe (The Last Temptation of Christ, Platoon), a modern artist who burns his own canvas and prints his own money when he needs it.  Dafoe's trade  is challenged when his funnymoney mule John Turturro is busted and sent to prison.

Twisting and slithering through the dusty streets of LA fueled by the golden-synth tunes of Wang Chung, this forgotten buddy picture is a hard edged nightmare of pure 80s that can often seen to be an no punches pulled imitation of Mann's breakout hit Miami Vice.  The true life gritty memoirs of a Secret Service man's career leads Friedkin down a dark path, which is where William excels.  Having produced several masterpieces (and many forgettable pieces), his To Live and Die is a shock to the system.  The violent death, the Neon pink fonts, the metro-sexuality of the villains, the new wave pop music, the strutting and the whimpering male egos, the best car chase since his own French Connections, it all congeals into an artform that is almost dead and almost never was.  There are some slices to the film that haven't aged as well; the arty music video jump cuts in the opening montage, dancers in spandex and face paint, the Poprock soundtrack, the now cliche doomed dude who is "3 days from retirement", but honestly TLADILA most likely was one of the first to dip into those tropes anyway.  Plus with a movie so different in tone (a dark realistic look at the 80s filled with brutality and unforeseen twists all filmed in sunny California) and has such an uncompromising stance on story and speed of narrative, Friedkin's To Live and Die in LA is beautifully untypical crime and coppers caper that is fast, cheap and almost out of control.

8 Wrong Ways on an LA Freeway out of 10 (GREAT)