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

There are crime thrillers that use a city as their setting, and then there are crime thrillers that seem to grow directly out of one, like weeds cracking through sun-baked concrete. To Live and Die in L.A. belongs firmly in the second camp. Released in 1985, it centres on Richard Chance, a U.S. Secret Service agent whose partner is murdered, and whose determination to bring down the man responsible, a slippery and dangerous counterfeiter named Eric Masters, carries him well beyond the boundaries of the law he is supposed to uphold. The premise, on paper, sounds like any number of Reagan-era cop thrillers. What William Friedkin does with it is something else entirely.

By 1985, Friedkin had already demonstrated a particular gift for stripping genre films down to something rawer and more unsettling than audiences expected. The French Connection had earned him an Academy Award for Best Director, and The Exorcist had confirmed him as one of the most technically assured filmmakers of his generation. The years between those landmarks and this film had been commercially turbulent for him, which perhaps explains the restless, almost defiant energy that runs through To Live and Die in L.A. The screenplay, which Friedkin co-wrote with Gerald Petievich (adapting Petievich's own novel), is not interested in moral tidiness. The film was produced by SLM Production Group and New Century Productions, with United Artists handling distribution, and shot on location across Los Angeles, lending it a texture that studio backlots could never have provided. Cinematographer Robby Müller, the Dutch master who brought a similar sun-scorched eeriness to Wim Wenders' work, was an inspired choice, and the results speak for themselves on screen.

The cast assembled here is, in retrospect, a remarkably interesting one. William L. Petersen, who the following year would bring a similar coiled, instability to Manhunter, leads the film as Chance: not quite a hero, not quite a villain, and all the more interesting for sitting in that uncomfortable middle ground. Opposite him, Willem Dafoe plays Eric Masters with a quiet, controlled menace that feels genuinely threatening precisely because it so rarely raises its voice. John Pankow and John Turturro round out a supporting cast that keeps the film grounded even as Friedkin pushes the visual and tonal register toward something almost hallucinatory. The synth-heavy score, composed and performed by Wang Chung, is very much of its moment, but it earns its place in the overall design of the film rather than simply decorating it. Friedkin would return to darker, more transgressive territory in later years (as anyone who has read the site's coverage of Killer Joe will know), but this is one of his most purely cinematic achievements, polished but unremarkable it is not.

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) is a neon-drenched, morally inverted crime thriller that doesn’t just capture the spirit of 1980s Los Angeles, it weaponizes it. Directed by William Friedkin at his most audacious, the film follows Richard Chance (William Petersen), a reckless, amoral Secret Service agent who’ll break every rule to take down a counterfeiter (Willem Dafoe, chillingly cool). What unfolds isn’t a hero’s journey but a descent into obsession, corruption, and self-destruction, and it’s all wrapped in one of the most visually intoxicating packages ever committed to celluloid. The cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking. Shot by Robby Müller (Paris, Texas, Down by Law), every frame looks like a sun-bleached pop-art painting, think Hiroshi Nagai meets Michael Mann. Palm trees glow against pastel skies, freeways shimmer in golden-hour haze, and downtown L.A. becomes a labyrinth of glass, steel, and shadow. It’s stylized without being artificial; the city isn’t just a backdrop, it’s a character, seductive and soulless. The cast is great: Petersen burns with manic intensity, John Pankow brings heart as his more grounded partner, and Dafoe oozes quiet menace. Add in Wang Chung’s pulsing synth-rock soundtrack (both diegetic and atmospheric) and you’ve got a sensory experience that’s as immersive as it is unsettling. Also..  that car chase is up there with the best. A masterclass in style with substance to match. Friedkin doesn’t moralize; he observes, implicates, and leaves you rattled. Not just a great ‘80s film, but one of the most underrated American crime films, period. Gritty, gorgeous, and gloriously amoral. To watch it is to fall into L.A.’s glittering trap, and love every second of it.

I keep coming back to the fact that this film doesn't seem to have lodged itself in the popular memory the way it deserves to. It turns up occasionally on best-of lists, gets a mention in conversations about 1980s Los Angeles on film, and then somehow gets passed over again. Maybe it's because it refuses to give you a clean emotional exit, no catharsis, no reassuring conclusion, just the city glittering on, indifferent. For me, that's exactly what makes it stick. Some films let you off the hook when the credits roll. This one doesn't. And frankly, the best ones never do.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1985  | Watched: 2026-02-15

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from William Friedkin: Cruising (1980) · The French Connection (1971) · Killer Joe (2011) · The Exorcist (1973)
More with William L. Petersen: Manhunter (1986)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)