(On TV, July 2018) Mood counts for more than I care to admit in watching movies, and so it is that after a lengthy run of older black-and-white classic movies, I was hungering for something like the 1980s crime thriller antics of To Live and Die in L.A. despite significant reservations about much of the film’s execution. Delving in the nitty-gritty of money counterfeiting, this William Friedkin movie goes to Los Angeles for a sordid tale of crooked cops, unabashed villains, not-so-victimized girlfriends and hazy sunlight. William Petersen turns in a career-best performance as an adrenaline-addicted cop who throws away morality and decency in a quest to take down his partner’s killer. That killer turns out to be played by Willem Dafoe, in an early, perhaps less intense performance but one that shows how handsomely the actor has aged since then. Other surprising names pop up here and there, from John Turturro, Robert Downey (Senior) and a short-but-striking appearance by Jane Leeves. The influence of the mid-eighties couldn’t be more obvious with its garish credit sequence and Wang Chung-scored synth soundtrack—it’s one of the film’s more dated features, and it’s about as annoying as the gratuitous gory violence that mars a film that’s far too exploitative to deserve its gore. The story is a game played with clichés—the three-days-to-retirement veteran, the out-of-control hero, the hidden informants, the sunny California haze … it feels like both a spiritual cousin to Miami Vice and a prototype for Heat — even the much-lauded counter-flow car chase feels less impressive now that it has been copied so often. Still, for all of its grim narrative (in which a rogue cop causes an endless parade of trouble and death for everyone), To Live and Die in L.A. is surprisingly entertaining, and even the over-the-top eighties aesthetics eventually work in the film’s favour. There’s even a substantial thematic depth in the way the protagonist is revealed to be a revolting anti-hero—so much so that his unsentimentally portrayed fate is a mere stepping stone to even greater character corruption. In doing so, To Live and Die in L.A. becomes something more than a mere rearrangement of genre elements, but a reassessment of our toxic relationship with them. That’s quite a bit more than I expected in tackling the film, predisposed mood eventually giving way to honest interest in what the film was attempting.
(Second Viewing, On Cable TV, July 2021) I ended up rewatching To Live and Die in L.A. more or less by accident: TCM had itself a neo-noir spotlight, and I was more interested in hearing the film’s introduction than the film itself – after all, I had watched it only a few years ago and was only cautiously positive about it. But I left the film running after the laudatory introduction as I was doing other things, and was gradually sucked into the film as it went on. By the time the car chase rolled by and the true shape of the film’s neo-noir corruption had come up, I had abandoned my other tasks and was riveted to the screen until the end. There is a lot to like in the now-period portrait of mid-1980s Los Angeles, especially if you see it as an explicit take on familiar noir themes. The way it takes on themes from 1940s police procedurals and refuses the argument-from-authority portraying policemen as virtuous is fascinating, as is the corruption of its wide-eyed idealist protagonist. (Heck, it even switches the protagonist in the last quarter.) The car chase remains quite good, and Willem Defoe is striking in one of his early performances. Even the often-excessive violence didn’t seem as outrageous this time around – which is clearly something that the previous viewing had primed me to expect. Still, I was surprised — To Live and Die in L.A. definitely holds up to a second viewing, perhaps even more so if you have a better idea of where it fits in cinema history.
