To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

From William Friedkin, the man who brought you the Best Picture-winning film, The French Connection (Which I am not a big fan of), and one of the greatest horror films of all time, The Exorcist, To Live and Die in L.A., based on the book of the same name, is a film with a great title song by Wang Chung, a pretty swell car chase scene, and has actors such as Willem Dafoe and John Turturro before they became famous, but doesn’t have many other redeeming qualities. Released in 1985, the film is about Richard Chance’s (William Petersen), a Secret Service agent in the counterfeiting department, quest to bring down Rick Masters (Dafoe), a ruthless, homicidal counterfeiter who murdered Jimmy Hart, Chance’s partner. Chance is assigned a younger, by-the-book, agent, John Vukovich (John Pankow). Chance becomes reckless and breaks numerous laws and rules in order to take Masters down. He and a reluctant Vukovich go undercover in order to get in touch with Masters, but can’t come up with the money to pay Masters up front, due to a policy in the agency and the lack of support from their superior (Robert Downey Sr.). Meanwhile, Chance is sextorting a parolee, Ruth (Darlanne Fluegel), for information on Masters as she was associated with him. The film is lackluster compared to Friedkin’s earlier films, and isn’t as entertaining. There’s too many scenes where the main characters are naked, a few of those scenes are completely unnecessary and irrelevant to the film’s plot, such as one scene where the agents are changing in a locker room while talking to Masters. Do we really need to see these guys naked, even from behind? All in all, the film is a decent action movie, but is pretty forgettable and not the best action movie to come out of the 1980s. I rate it FAIR on the scale.