To Live and Die in L.A. (Special Edition)
MGM (Video & DVD) - MGM (Video & DVD)
Release date: 2003-12-02
DVD
Director:William Friedkin
Actors: William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer, John Turturro
Action, Action / Adventure, Action Thriller, Action/Adventure, Adult Language, Adventure, Angry, Bleak, Color, Crime, Crime Thriller, Downbeat, Drama, English, Feature, Feature Film-action/Adventure, Graphic Violence, Gritty, High Production Values, Movie
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To Live and Die in L.A. (Special Edition)
Date undefinedOther reviewers did a great job , and there's nothing left for me))), except this: first of all I'd like to notice that brilliantly used "flashbacks" in some scenes gives you much of mysterious feel (especially during final scene) and movie shines even more with it, addin' to this "multi-layered" masterpiece one more implication way.
After movie is over you'd prefer to watch it again and again, and still after numerous times of watching, you'll be thinking and wondering about this twisted story over and over. And now I understand Jack Hues(Wang Chand) who wrote a very solid song(To Live and Die in L.A.) being highly impressed at pre-production show of film.
Also I would like to notice that DVD is well done with amazing sound, good visuals transaction(but it could be a bit better) and with such adds as deleted scenes and alternate ending etc. Personally, I will be waiting possible Blue-Ray release.
To Live and Die in L.A. (Special Edition)
Date undefinedHang on to your hats, folks, this movie is genre revisionism with a vengeance. William Friedkin's 1985 take on the Rogue Cop movie, made at the genre's high tide (between "48 Hours" and "Lethal Weapon," while Stallone and Shwarzenegger were churning out programmers like "Raw Deal" and "Cobra" and "Miami Vice" was the hottest thing on the tube), takes the hoary cliche of the vigilante cop who will stop at absolutley nothing to take down the crook who killed his partner (days before retirement, of course) and pulls the audience into very dark territory indeed. So dark the audience didn't follow, and the movie was a box office and critical fiasco. Which, as is so often the case, means To Live and Die is a masterpiece. Over and over again, the movies have encouraged us to cheer when a cop throws out the rule book and gets down and dirty to bring down the bad guy; Friedkin meticulously, rigorously designed this film to make the cheer die in our throat and turn into a cry of despair.
William Peterson plays Chance, a US treasury agent, whose partner has been gunned down by a counterfeitor he was tailing named Masters (Willem Dafoe). Peterson begins by attempting to smoke Masters out by surveillance, then by busting his associates and attempting to turn them, but when all that fails, he goes undercover as a buyer of funny money --and finds himself crossing over the line between law and crime.
I don't want to spoil much here, as this film is dependant on numerous narrative turns where the rug is completely pulled out from under the audience. Note first the casting -- Peterson, now of CSI fame, but then a svelte, atheltic graduate of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater Company, and Dafoe, then a recent grad of the avant-garde NYC theater troop The Wooster Group, were then complete unknowns. As a result, we don't know until the end who, if anyone, is going to get out of this bloodbath alive, because stardom provides no clues. Moreover, Friedkin points out in the excellent commentary, since this is a film about counterfeiting, nothing is what it seems. The tough macho cop becomes so obsessed with his mission he becomes an extorionist, a pimp, an armed robber, a thug, a bully and much,much worse; the diabolical, quick to violence criminal mastermind is an artist, a devoted lover, and lives up to his own peculiar moral code. Throughout the film, Friedkin uses the unfamiliarity of his stars to play with our identification until we realize too late, we're trapped in a wilderness of mirrors, completely unable to get our moral bearings. Then Friedkin closes in for the kill, because if you don't agree the last half hour of this film is one of the most shocking finales in mainstream Hollywood history, I'll stop posting reviews!
Other plusses -- a phenomenal supporting cast: Dean Stockwell as Dafoe's lawyer, an oily fixer who knows no matter who goes down, he'll always come out on top; John Turturro, in his first significant role, channeling Timothy Carey as Dafoe's ferocious bagman; Darlene Fluegel as the T-Man's sex-slave/informer/mistress, kept in his thrall with the threat of bail-revocation; John Pankow (later Ira on "Mad About You") as Peterson's green partner, continually prodded against his conscience into breaking the rules by the older law-man's undermining of his masulinity.
Also: the landscape of Los Angeles, a star in itself in this film -- I am convinced the look of "To Live And Die" was a significant goad to Michael Mann when he shot "Heat" -- both films use location masterfully, the sprawl, landscape diversity, and alienating qualities of the city make it a virtual third antagonist in the film (shot by Wender's DP Robbie Muller, in glowing oranges and tropic greens). "Heat" also borrows To Live and Die's cat-and-mouse sructure, the narrative juxtaposing both the cop and crook's moves-and-counermoves while paralleling their love lives, obsessions, and devotion to their jobs.
And action? There's a car chase the wrong way down the 10 Freeway at rush hour that has got to be among the best ever filmed -- as a plus, the chase is absolutely integral to the narrative, not an add-on effect, as even the best so often are. The film's violence is ugly and unrelenting --for example, when people are shot, it's full on in the face, and faces come off. Fist-fights are messy, exhausting, protracted affairs. In the car chase, the drivers are screaming in legitimate terror.
Michael Mann again -- I mentioned Miami Vice ruled the roost when Friedkin shot this film; he deliberately cribbed that show's "MTV/Cops" frenetic editing, pumped up '80's soundtrack (Wang Chung, who actually do a good job!!!) and shiny color scheme, to the point where Mann publicly considered a lawsuit. But the effect here is subversive -- like LA itself, Friedkin creates a glizty sun-blasted alluring surface, just to show us the festering sores underneath.
Friedkin gave us the paradigmatic gritty police procedural in 1971 with The French Connection, and the most elaborate Hollywood horror excursion ever with The Exorcist in 1973; In To Live and Die, he gives us both, and I leave it to you the reader to decide which genre, cop film or horror movie, the film's last image leaves us with.
One of the best of the '80's, IMHO; think of To Live And Die as a metaphorical prophesy for Camp X-Ray: you'll never want your lawmen breaking the rules again, no matter how honorable their intentions at the outset, after you see it...
To Live and Die in L.A. (Special Edition)
Date undefinedTo Live and Die in L. A., in my opinion, is a first-class movie, just as a scoop of jamocha almond fudge is a great cone. But it's unnerving when after three or four satisfying licks of jamocha all of a sudden you're handling the taste of tutti-frutti. What the...but then you're back quickly to the jamocha...wait a minute, now I've got a taste of raspberry-pumpkin to deal with.
William Friedkin's movie about a murderous counterfeiter and an obsessed, out-of-control Secret Service agent who is determined to kill or capture him has many pleasures. Among them is Willem Dafoe as Rick Masters, a first-rate counterfeiter, a second-rate artist, a clever man with a big, cunning ego and a dangerous lack of humanitarian standards. Masters is a killer, and Dafoe, with his bony face, full lips and watchful eyes -- and outstanding acting talent -- makes the most of the part. There's a terrific, white-knuckle car chase through a truck-crowded produce market and then the wrong way on a crowded freeway. And Friedkin makes the most of the story, from telling us all we would ever want to know about how to counterfeit $20 bills, and doing so in fascinating detail, to building a gallery of sleazy criminals, used women and all-too-flawed cops. The drive to bring down Rick Masters is built up of set piece after set piece, each a building block which is put in place with a great deal of assurance. I enjoyed myself no end. But in a disconcerting way, while I could see the superb talents of the director who gave us The French Connection (a great film), The Night They Raided Minsky's (a bit of burlesque nostalgia put together with skill) and The Exorcist (a huge crowd pleaser), there also were enough "why did he include this?" moments that brought to mind the whole string of movies he's made that just didn't work well. Friedkin throws in everything from a toe-kneading lesbian subtext, unnecessary full frontal (for a second or two) male nudity, an easily ironic "who's the tough guy now" closing and a climax reminiscent of the Frankenstein monster staggering around in flames. Friedkin even mars that nerve-wracking, over-the-top car chase, which is as technically exciting as The French Connection's chase, by throwing in the silly illogic of all those guys in black cars and with semi-automatics popping up along the route. Distracting? Yes. Intentional? I'm afraid so.
Among the elements that made The French Connection so powerful and entertaining were two great actors, Gene Hackman and Fernando Rey. To Live and Die in L. A. has some fine actors, but none come close to the defining work of Hackman and Rey. Dafoe stands out of the crowd, but, in my opinion, that's it. As William Chance, the obsessed Secret Service agent, we have William Peterson, a baby-faced actor playing a baby-faced hotshot tough guy. He's saddled with such corny tough guy dialogue as, "Let me tell you something, amigo. I'm going to bag Masters and I don't give a ---- how I do it!" or (with a snarl) "You mean you won't carry your weight if something goes down?" While Masters becomes more ruthless as the story unfolds and, in a perverse way, becomes more dominant because of his sense of humor and weird charm, Chance simply becomes more self-involved, more predictable and more unlikable. However, there is a surprise 104 minutes into the movie that solves part of the problem.
To Live and Die in L. A. has so many excellent elements that I ended up wishing Friedkin had employed more self-discipline in his choice of the elements he used to embroider the story. It would be sad indeed to see a director like William Friedkin tagged as the man who had two big hits, and then everything after for 35 years was either flawed, a failure or dull. To Live and Die in L. A. runs nearly two hours. If Friedkin had been forced to edit it down by, say 15 minutes, I think he might have had something approaching The French Connection's powerful tension. As it is, we have a movie that is exciting, irritating, nasty around the edges and a pleasure to watch.
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