http://www.criticsrant.com/archive/2007/10/23/Retro-Rant-TO-LIVE-AND-DIE-IN-L.A.-1985.aspx Crime flicks are a standard genre in America. You can generally figure out the outlines of most crime films before the title cards stop rolling, and it’s a tried-and-true formula. However, there are always a few guys who convince studios to give them money, equipment and actors and then go out and make something different. William Friedkin is one of those guys, and he must have confused the hell out of the suits at MGM when he handed in TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., one of the more underappreciated works of his career. This 1985 crime thriller starts out as a standard crime thriller with a revenge component, but it sure ain’t the same film by the time it ends. Richard Chance (William L. Petersen, much thinner and meaner than he is now on CSI) and Jim Hart (Michael Greene) are Secret Service agents based out of the Los Angeles office. As the movie opens, they’re on protection detail, but they spend most of their time chasing counterfeiters. They’ve been partners and friends for seven years, but Hart’s approaching retirement, and he wants to take down one last bad guy before he goes: master counterfeiter Rick Masters (an astonishingly young Willem Dafoe). With three days left before he retires, Hart chases down a lead on his own, over his partner’s objections, and gets a face full of shotgun for his troubles. Chance vows to catch Masters and make him pay for his crimes, pulling his new partner, straight-laced John Vukovich (John Pankow), into the pursuit with him. Up to this point, the film is your usual thriller gig, if filmed a little more stylishly than usual. Other than the Wang Chung soundtrack, you’ve probably seen this kind of thing before. However, as the pursuit of Masters begins in earnest, Friedkin and Petersen pull the rug out from under the audience. Chance is not a heroic type at all: he’s banging one of his informants (Darlanne Fluegel) and keeping his thumb on her by threatening to revoke her parole, he decides to run his own off-the-books sting to catch Masters, and when he can’t get his boss to pay for it, he finances it by ripping off a courier who’s part of a diamond smuggling operation. Oh, and the courier gets killed in the process (though not by Chance or Vukovich), which isn’t so bad until it comes out he was actually an undercover G-man. Oops. en-US Critics Rant info@criticsrant.com Subtext Version 1.9.4.0 http://www.criticsrant.com/images/default_gravatar_bullhorn.png http://www.criticsrant.com/archive/2007/10/23/Retro-Rant-TO-LIVE-AND-DIE-IN-L.A.-1985.aspx 77 60