To Live and Die in L.A.

1985 action movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A cop guy tries to avenge the death of his partner, who was only a few days from retirement.

He was only a few days from retirement! Why, of course he was because this is an 80's movie and that's how 80's movies deal with emotion.

I'm still working my way through 1985 and not enjoying it all that much. This William Friedkin joint is fairly entertaining and completely inoffensive even though it's wearing the same skin that loads of other cop movies have worn. A lot of those movies are low-grade B-movies which, 32 years later, makes this seem much cheaper than it might have been in the middle of the 80s. There's an 80's sleazy sheen over the thing, or maybe it's more like a film, and the gun fights, the protagonist, the sex scenes, and a lot of the dialogue just stink of that particular time.

There are some nice touches. There's a random little person, for example. There's also a lengthy car chase that made it seem as if Friedkin, who wasn't exactly delivering blockbusters prolifically, decided he needed to return to his roots and try to duplicate something he'd had success with in The French Connection. That car chase is entirely, as far as I can remember, sans music, and it's better for it. There's enough musicality in the screeching of tires and cacophonous honking of horns.

It was also fun watching a young Willem Dafoe at work. There's nothing really that stands out about his character, the villain in To Live and Die in L.A., other than him being Willem Dafoe. He does get his own 80's sex scene and shows some side-butt if that's your thing or even if it's a thing at all. My favorite part of the entire movie might have been watching him work at his counterfeiting craft. I'm not sure the attention to detail there is as good as something like Rifiki or Thief, but there did seem to be a deliberate attempt by Friedkin and Dafoe to make that seem as legitimate as possible.