William Friedkin - To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), 8/10

Friedkin (The French Connection) submits another great action film with To Live and Die in L.A., a picture that is truly thrilling in its colorful cinematography and performances, working intimately with its source material in the form of Gerald Petievich’s novel of the same name. Friedkin and Petievich worked together in authoring the screenplay, crafting one of the more interesting neo-noir films of the eighties. Willem Dafoe plays the counterfeiter Rick Masters, an artist notorious both for brutality and competent artistry. Richard Chance (William Peterson) and and his partner Jimmy Hart are assigned to take him down, but when Hart goes rogue in a preliminary investigation, Masters and his bodyguard murder Hart, giving Chance motivation to take down Masters "by any means necessary". He is assigned Vukovich (John Pankow) as a new partner, but Vukovich is reasonably (yet frustratingly) more interested in maintaining his career than pursuing Masters. The narrative developments throughout the film are genuinely affecting, never appearing as trite impositions of genre common to crime cinema. Here Friedkin and Petievich combine visually palpable emotivism and character relationships to impress us as an audience, surprisingly presenting an unblemished script.

In addition to an all-time great performance from Peterson and another eerie villain via Dafoe, we get an early glimpse into John Torturro's versatility as Carl Cody. The film’s aesthetic is unmistakably eighties, but its excess is memorably charming, and it uses its self-aware critique to comment on its subject matter rather than committing to pure indulgence. One of the greatest moments in the film is in its lengthy car chase, for which Peterson (yes he did his own driving stunts) and the car chase coordinators deserve endless credit, creating an impressive sense of immersive panic through its seemingly impossible practical effects. This remains one of the most impressive and impactful action sequences in cinema. It serves to bolster Chance’s character as well, adding to the narrative power of an already heavily emotive script, and supporting Chance’s thematic need for mortal-threatening action. This perhaps secondarily hosts revenge motivation, but Chance’s character is a fully-developed character transcending the detective/cop identity. After the near-death experience, John flaunts his success, making us wonder when he will pay the price for his foolish recklessness, but not for long. The late developments of the film are among the more effectual of the genre, capitalizing on the immense momentum and effusive plot-turns that continue through the end of the story. All of these narrative successes, along with excellent attention to detail and simultaneously subtle yet radical acting performances, give To Live and Die in L.A. its place among the greats of the eighties.