It's impossible to oversell the mind-blowing experience of seeing To Live and Die in LA when it came out in the mid 80s, smack dab in the middle of the reactionary sentimental counterrevolution in Hollywood. It's basically an anti-copaganda movie. The maverick cop makes everything worse.
I watched ten minutes or so of it the other evening. I owned it on VHS & DVD and have seen it dozens of times. It’s a remarkable picture.
Great movie and another classic car chase this time featuring LA freeways. However, my contrary take (if I recall correctly) - is that I didn't like the Wang Chung soundtrack...so sue me.
We got through all these comments and no reference to a young Daphne from Frasier.........I saw it in theater on release and it was incredible.
With her name spelled “Jane Leaves” in the credits!
He’s so wonderfully, extraordinarily bad at his job and worse at his extracurriculars.
Only saw it for the first time recently and, while I'm around your age, I cannot imagine how insane that must've been when it came out in the theater.
Would make a good double feature with Running Scared, a very pro cop movie.
PSA: Still streaming (with light ads) on Tubi.
Man, I love that movie! I've seen it umpteen times and would happily watch it again in a heartbeat. Killer soundtrack to boot.
man I wish I'd been around to see it back then in the theatre
Did you ever read the book? The movie version is mild in comparison.
It is also the movie where I discovered John Turturro
I was an undergrad film major, and this is the movie all my professors were talking about. When I went, I was floored.
With Manhunter, William Peterson’s indelible performances. Pankow is good as well.
Recently caught a screening of The French Connection and it struck me as funny how, in a few ways, Friedkin remade his own movie in a new location and era with To Live and Die in LA.
Yes, and I think he's actually on firmer ground in the second one, in terms of "depiction does not equal endorsement"
Oh absolutely. The end of To Live and Die in LA almost seems to say “I let Popeye off easy” with a period.
I thought it was pretty edgy that they realistically depicted the printing of counterfeit money. It's mesmerizing.
Willem Dafoe talks about how they spent the fake money here: www.vulture.com/article/will...
"We robbed another federal agency, accidentally killing an undercover agent in the process, in order to fund our unauthorized extralegal sting operation" is a story beat that's hard to imagine in a crime thriller *now*, and is downright radical in 1987.
At one point in the I'm guessing late 80s the Boston FOX station put out an TV ad saying "Wow, you all watched "To Live And Die In L.A." on this week's movie, we're bringing it back"
And it’s a Christmas movie! But only the main title acknowledges it
Petersen's dead-eyed, post-credits stare. On a related note, I love that MYSTIC RIVER ends with the vigilante killing the wrong guy and not really caring. The point was that killing someone - anyone - would make him feel better.
It was profoundly shocking because the package was so glossy and expensive and had Wang Chung soundtrack with a Top 10 hit. Yet it was an amoral kick in the head. America was a wasteland of grift and abuse. There was no hope. It predicted 2025 with clinical precision.
And greatest shotgun to the faces effects….
Yeah, I think he wanted to make sure you knew they were dead and they weren't gonna pop up five minutes later I bet he hated that shit
Youve seen his commentary on the alternate ending?
youtu.be/x6B7UiTcRvM?...
I’ve never seen that! That is wild. Thanks!
It really is an insane ending
Maybe that’s where DePalma got the idea for the line in Mission Impossible….” I want him manning a radar tower in Alaska by the end of the day.”
And all for McQ and company to cash in as seemingly the longest gestating setup and payoff in action movie history lol
Hilarious.
Saw it at the South Hampton movie theatre in 1985. I was 8. It was amazing.
Absolutely nutso car chase too
"Cops doing crime against other different cops as part of their investigation" is always a great development.
Petersen is so good at playing such an extremely unlikable "hero."
I love his bowlegged gunfighter walk
When Daphne from Fraiser shows up.
Good thing it ends with a nice and tidy happy endi—oh yeah
This and The French Connection makes me think Friedkin really didn't like cops. 😀
If you’ve ever lived in Chicago…
First name drop of Michael Jordan in a pop culture work too, iirc
That ending where his partner calmly but firmly tells the sex worker WP kept as effectively his personal slave that now she belongs to him is maybe the bleakest assessment of what cops are in cinema history.