When his soon-to-retire partner is brutally killed by artist/counterfeiter Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe), Secret Service agent Richard Chance (William L. Petersen) makes it his mission to bag Masters, even if that means he and his new partner, a rookie named John Vukovich (John Pankow), have to bend a few laws.

CRITIQUE

To Live and Die in L.A., which I saw before Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and even director William Friedkin’s own The French Connection, taught me you don’t have to like characters to enjoy the movie they inhabit. In my defense, I’m part of the Star Wars generation, so I was more or less conditioned to think a story had to be populated by cool people you’d want to hang around. But then came this movie, which I saw only because my brother refused to leave me alone about it until I had. (In my defense, I had seen Friedkin’s previous movie, the horrible Deal of the Century, so being wary of anything steered by the same man didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time.) So I rented it, watched it, and liked it.

At the time this came as something of a surprise, as there’s not a remotely likeable character to be found (one guy comes close, but he takes a shotgun blast to the head about ten minutes in). The protagonists are just as scummy as the antagonists; everyone acts out of blind self-interest, and some of the decisions they make are incredibly stupid. But as I realized, you don’t have to like the characters to get involved in the plot; the story here is twisty, gnarled, and mean, and it really seems to understand the world it portrays (Gerard Petievich, who wrote the novel on which the movie is based and co-wrote the script, is a former Secret Service agent). It’s ugly as hell, and it’s not the sort of movie you can--in the strictest sense of the word, anyway--enjoy, but it does represent something of a minor standout in its particular genre.

Before he completely lost his mind (as time goes by, this looks more and more like it will go down as his last good movie), Friedkin was a master of this sort of combination of sordid and smart. I think he was aware of this, and I also think he tried to hard to keep doing it. Cruising is often laughable in its attempts to be brutal and shocking, and Sorcerer is labored in its desire to one-up The Wages of Fear. At times you can see To Live and Die in L.A. going out of its way to be gritty (particularly in some of the dialog, which is phony-tough terrible, and the kinkiness, which at times is decidedly out of place), and the attempts to paint a dirty portrait of a beautiful world (or maybe it’s the other way around) are a bit forced and obvious at times.

However, Friedkin the visual storyteller makes up for the predilections of Friedkin the thinker. Early on he stages a sequence in which we’re walked through Masters’s counterfeiting operation, and it’s fascinating; a couple of steps are left out and some of the particulars are glossed over (for obvious reasons), but it’s a great hook, so knowing and put together so well it draws you in. About forty minutes later Friedkin stages a chase scene that actually rivals the one in The French Connection. And it’s based around an idea so simple you have to wonder why someone didn’t think of it before: have the cars drive into oncoming traffic (traffic which is actually realistic and not movie-light). It must have been a logistical nightmare, but it’s an amazing sequence.

Now for the elephant in the room: the music. Friedkin chose Wang Chung to score this movie, and that was something of an unfortunate decision. The music hasn’t aged well, and it dates the movie with a vengeance (even more so than Petersen’s Harry Reems-esque wardrobe). The sequenced, synthesized noises and chugging drum machines clash with the unpleasant story and characters (if this is meant to be a counterpoint or juxtaposition, it’s a failed one), and the repetition of the same short snippets (exactly what about the movie’s title cries out for a theme song?) becomes increasingly tiring as the movie unfolds. I’ve always thought the accusations of Miami Vice plagiarism leveled against the movie were largely unfounded, but in this area I think To Live and Die shares Vice’s flaw of being a little too shackled to the then-current cultural trappings.

THE VIDEO

The 1.85:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC (and with a bit rate that runs incredibly high at times)--is an improvement over that of the sub-par DVD, but it’s still not a great transfer. A lot of minor issues plague the image; there’s some noticeable color banding, blacks are uneven, damage in the source elements are occasionally visible, and there’s some noise mixed in with the grain (which is intentionally heavy).

The image is soft, but this softness is inherent in Robby Müller’s cinematography; as a result, detail is uneven, even in close-ups. Given the movie’s somewhat contradictory stylistics, the transfer isn’t as bad as it could have been (and nowhere near as bad as I was expecting), but it’s also nothing terribly impressive.

Note: the specs on the packaging indicate this is an MPEG-2 transfer and a 25GB disc, which is definitely not the case. I think that was the plan when this release was originally announced, but it looks like MGM/Fox wisely chose to rectify this during the subsequent delay but didn’t bother to update the packaging.

THE AUDIO

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track boasts a very nice remix of the original theatrical stereo mix (surround action is more plentiful and convincing than I was expecting), but dated fidelity drags it down. Dialogue sounds rather good, but effects have a slightly thin, creaky quality, and the low end lacks weight.

English Dolby Digital 4.0 and Spanish and French Dolby Surround tracks are also included; English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

As they’re inclined to do with their catalog titles, MGM/Fox has chosen not to port the DVD extras over to the Blu-ray disc itself; they attempt to compensate for this by including a copy said DVD in the same package. The only extra on the Blu-ray disc is the movie’s theatrical trailer (which is presented in standard definition).

The extras on the DVD kick off with an excellent commentary by William Friedkin. It’s concise and informative, covering all aspects of the movie in non-stop fashion.

Counterfeit World: The Making of To Live and Die in L.A. (29 minutes) is a good retrospective featurette.

Deleted scene and alternate ending featurettes (13 minutes total) focus on an excised bit in which Pankow’s character attempts to reconcile with his ex-wife (a moment Friedkin later came to regret cutting) and what has to be the single stupidest alternate ending in the history of cinema. (You can also choose to watch the deleted bits without having to sit through their respective featurettes.)

Closing things out is a photo gallery.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Dated trappings and storytelling flaws don’t prevent To Live and Die in L.A. from being a good “bad cop” movie. And it’s a good reminder that the man who made Jade and The Guardian sometimes knows what the hell he’s doing.