To me, this movie is perfection.

Powerful

A Masterpiece!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I really love William Friedkin movies, i have enjoyed Sorcerer and The French Connection, and especially Cruising which is not so popular among the critics (how are they wrong). So after these three movies i wanted to watch more from Friedkin and have choosed To Live and Die in L.A as next. I suppose i choosed these one because of the title, and because it is from the 80's which is one of my favorite decades. I have expected some good thriller/crime in the vein of magnificent The French Connection but i was totally wrong, these movie is totally cheesy from start to finish. The plot is nothing special, the movie just goes but nothing happens at all till the end. Than we go to the main reason i didn't like these one, it is the acting. Except phenomenal Williem Defoe other cast is just disastrous. Williem Petersen and John Pankow are the pair of your dreams ha-ha i am kidding, they are so out of charisma, unoticable, boring and cheesy, especially the acting of Williem Petersen it is on the level of B-movies actors. Other supportive cast is also not worth mentioning. And on all of that just add the soundtrack of British band Wang Chung, i really like 80s music and soundtracks, but these soundtrack is not going well with the movie and even gives more b-movie atmosphere. I just give this movie 5 from 10 because of great charismatic acting by Williem Defoe, and phenomenal car chase near the end of the movie, but my advice is to skip this one, you will not regret, and you will save your precious time.

William Friedkin of "The Exorcist" fame went back to his crime film roots with this well executed action thriller based on a former LAPD agent's book of the same name. The story is relatively simple at the start as the film has two officers (William Petersen and John Pankow) of the U.S. Secret Service out to catch a notorious counterfeiter (Willem Dafoe) who killed the partner of one of the agents. The narrative takes several twists and turns as the agents race to take down their target, but keep learning along the way that it won't be an easy task to catch a smart criminal mastermind without prices being paid for their dedication.As the heroes (or in Petersen's character's case, an anti-hero), Petersen and Pankow display a unique chemistry that keeps their characters on opposite sides of the same case; Petersen's Chance will go beyond the law to catch their counterfeiter prey while Pankow's Vukovich is the by-the-books agent who soon learns he must go outside the rules to get the man they are after. The show primarily belongs to William Petersen's Chance as he is the driving force for the action since he is the one whose partner is killed early in the film. Petersen oozes a brash personality that counters the more reserved and just Vukovich that John Pankow plays.Playing the film's villain in one of his earliest starring roles is the ever charismatic and talented Willem Dafoe as the calculating and brutal Rick Masters. He is the counterfeiting mastermind Chance and Vukovich are desperately chasing, but Masters is always a step ahead. From brutally executing Chance's first partner, Jim Hart, to his masterful counterfeiting operation to even more crueler slayings for anyone who double-crosses him, Dafoe keeps a sinister charm to his portrayal of Masters and conveys his quiet intelligence with his trademark soft-spoken voice. Friedkin helped write the film's screenplay with some assistance from source writer, Gerald Petevich, and Petevich's brother. The director quite easily has control of their script which is clear from what is shown on-screen. However this does not dumb down the tension of the film as the clock ticks down the days and time of the action. If you want a pot-boiling action film that will have on the edge of your seat, I recommend this film.

Secret service agents Jimmy Hart and Richard Chance (William Petersen) thwart an Islamic terrorist during a Presidential visit. Hart has a few days left before retirement. He tries to investigate and gets killed by counterfeiter Eric Masters (Willem Dafoe). Chance vows to take him down. He gets John Vukovich (John Pankow) as his new partner. They catch Masters' delivery boy Carl Cody (John Turturro). Masters' lawyer Bob Grimes (Dean Stockwell) says Cody has to do 3 years. Chance's C.I. Ruth Lanier (Darlanne Fluegel) directs them to lawyer Max Waxman. Waxman was Cody's last stop and Masters suspects he set them up. Masters and his girlfriend Bianca Torres (Debra Feuer) go to demand repayment and ends up killing him. Chance steals Waxman's black book as he becomes more morally corrupt in order to take down Masters.William Friedkin delivers a slick thriller of amoral cops and immoral everyone else. I love Dafoe's montage of counterfeiting. Friedkin delivers so many great action scenes. The wrong way car chase is the highlight and probably the height of his action work. It is so slick and so stylized that I accept the avant-garde artsy stuff. It fits into the movie. It also has an early bungee jump on film. This is one of the most fun 80s action thriller filled with relatively unknown actors at the time. I can't help but think of Michael Mann who was showrunning Miami Vice TV show at the time.

So much potential, such bad casting. I'm giving this film a 3..no, on second thought make that a 4 only because I generally like Friedkins view on the world (Sorcerer, Fr Connection) and he always gets good camera-work out of his stuff. But this film… my god, the acting of Petersen and Pankow is beyond ridiculous. Everything about those two is ridiculous, dialog, behavior, the way they dress… it absolutely cripples the movie. Turrturo was excellent as was Dafoe. The rest of the cast was fine but when you have two disco-zombies like Petersen and Pankow prancing around in their tight levis, flashing skin, Petersen stumbling along in his high-heel cowboy boots, both of 'em doing some heavy male 'bonding' and then the final scene involving Pankow - - which is so utterly ridiculous (I know I'm using this word a lot here but dammit it fits) that I laughed out loud, well, even a Friedkin fan has to choke on his popcorn.Good chase scene though. And given the latest revelations regarding the 'professionalism' of the Secret Cervix, maybe its not that far off.