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

To Live and Die in L.A. is a 1985 American neo-noir action thriller film directed and co-written by William Friedkin. It is based on the 1984 novel of the same name by former U.S. Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, who co-wrote the screenplay with Friedkin. It stars William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, John Turturro, Darlanne Fluegel and Dean Stockwell. Wang Chung composed and performed the original music soundtrack. The film tells the story of the lengths to which two Secret Service agents go to arrest a counterfeiter.

The film was released by MGM/UA Entertainment Co. on November 1, 1985. It received generally positive reviews, with critics praising its authenticity and the cinematography by Robby Müller. It was a financial success, grossing $17.3 million from $6 million budget.

William Friedkin referred to the film as one of his favorites of his own works. In 2008, the film was voted by a group of Los Angeles Times staff as one of the best films set in Los Angeles in the previous 25 years.

Plot

After foiling an assassination attempt by an Islamic jihadist on President Reagan, Secret Service agents Richard Chance and Jimmy Hart are assigned as counterfeiting investigators in the Los Angeles field office. Days away from retirement, Hart stakes out a warehouse in the desert used by artist-turned-counterfeiter Eric "Rick" Masters and is killed by Masters and his bodyguard, Jack. Chance, who has earned a reputation for impulsive behavior, vows to his new partner, John Vukovich, that he will take Masters down by any means necessary.

Chance and Vukovich arrest Masters' mule, Carl Cody, after he makes a delivery to attorney Max Waxman, who lies to Masters that he never received the money. The agents place Waxman under surveillance, but he is betrayed by Masters' girlfriend, Bianca, and murdered by Masters. The by-the-book Vukovich is uncomfortable with Chance's increasingly reckless and unethical tactics, while Chance relies on his sexual-extortion relationship with Ruth, an informant on parole whom he threatens to send back to prison.

When Masters attempts to have Cody killed in prison, Chance arranges for his supervised release, but Cody escapes. Vukovich convinces Masters' attorney, Bob Grimes, to arrange a meeting between his client and the two agents, who pose as offshore bankers from Palm Springs seeking $1 million in fake bills. Masters demands $30,000 in front money, which the agency refuses to authorize. Desperate to entrap Masters, Chance persuades Vukovich to aid him in robbing Thomas Ling, a man Ruth learned will be carrying $50,000 to purchase stolen diamonds.

They intercept Ling at Union Station and seize the cash at gunpoint under the Sixth Street Viaduct, but are followed by his associates, who open fire, accidentally killing Ling. After a panicked car chase, Chance and Vukovich finally escape by going the wrong way on the freeway. Their next daily briefing reveals that Ling was an undercover FBI agent, and his associates were an FBI agent detail, but Chance remains determined to avenge Hart and continues their plan, paying Masters and arranging the $1 million exchange. Consumed by guilt, Vukovich meets with Grimes, who advises him to testify against Chance in exchange for a lighter sentence. Vukovich refuses to implicate his partner, who recaptures Cody.

The two agents meet with Masters and Jack for the exchange and attempt to arrest them, but Jack and Chance fatally shoot each other as Masters escapes. Vukovich pursues Masters to his warehouse workshop, where he is burning all evidence of his crimes. Masters asks why Vukovich did not take Grimes' advice to turn his partner in, revealing that Grimes was working on Masters' behalf all along. Subduing Vukovich, Masters covers him with shredded bills to set him on fire, but Vukovich awakens and shoots Masters repeatedly as the counterfeiter burns alive.

Packing up to leave Los Angeles, Ruth is confronted by Vukovich, now dressed much like Chance. She defends her right to keep the remaining $20,000 Chance left her, but Vukovich suggests that she knew Ling was an FBI agent and set Chance up. Embracing Chance's willingness to do "whatever it takes" and assuming his control of Ruth's life, Vukovich declares that she now works for him.

Cast

Production

Director William Friedkin was given Gerald Petievich's novel in manuscript form and found it very authentic. The filmmaker was also fascinated by the "absolutely surrealistic nature" of the job of a Secret Service agent outside Washington, D.C. When the film deal was announced, Petievich was investigated by a rival for a pending office promotion, and felt "a lot of resentment against me for making the movie" and "some animosity against me in the Secret Service" existed, exacerbated by the agent in the Los Angeles field office who suddenly resigned a few weeks after initiating the investigation.

Soundtrack

According to Friedkin, the main reason he chose Wang Chung to compose the soundtrack was because the band "stands out from the rest of contemporary music ... What they finally recorded has not only enhanced the film, it has given it a deeper, more powerful dimension". He wanted them to compose the score for his film after listening to the band's previous studio album, Points on the Curve (1984). He was so taken with the album that he took one of the songs straight off the album, "Wait", and used it as part of the soundtrack. "Wait" plays at the end credits of the film. Every song on the soundtrack, excluding the title song and "Wait", was written and recorded within a two-week period. Only after Wang Chung saw a rough cut of the film did they produce the title song.

Post-production

As early as the day he cast Petersen, Friedkin thought about killing off Chance towards the end of the film, but according to editor Bud Smith, Vukovich was supposed to be the one who was killed.

Home media

A DVD was released by MGM Home Entertainment on December 2, 2003. The DVD contains a new restored wide-screen transfer, an audio commentary featuring director Friedkin where he relates stories about the making of the movie, a half-hour documentary featuring the main characters, a deleted scene showing a distraught Vukovich bothering his soon-to-be ex-wife at her apartment, and the alternate ending Friedkin refused to use, in which the two Secret Service partners survive but are transferred to Alaska while their supervisor Bateman is promoted and takes credit for stopping Masters. On February 2, 2010, the film was released on Blu-ray not containing all of the previous special features that were included on the DVD release.

On November 21, 2016, Arrow Video released a Region B Blu-ray edition with the old features and new features with the composer, stunt co-ordinator, William Petersen, Debra Feuer and Dwier Brown. On November 22, 2016, Shout! Factory released a Collector's Edition, restoring the original DVD's special features and adding new ones. Kino Lorber released the movie on Ultra HD Blu-ray and Blu-ray on July 18, 2023.

Soundtrack

An original motion picture soundtrack was released on September 30, 1985, by Geffen Records. The album contained eight tracks. The album's title song, "To Live and Die in L.A.", (with a music video also directed by Friedkin), made it on the Billboard Hot 100 where it peaked at No. 41 in the United States.

Reception

Box-office

In the United States and Canada, To Live and Die in L.A. grossed $17.3million, against a production budget of $6million.

Critical response

Roger Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film four out of four stars, praising the car chase and calling the film "first-rate". This sentiment was echoed by writer David Ansen of Newsweek, writing "Shot with gritty flamboyance by Robby Muller, cast with a fine eye for fresh, tough-guy faces, To Live and Die in L.A. may be fake savage, but it's fun".

Others were more dismissive of the film, with critic Janet Maslin writing "Today, in the dazzling, superficial style that Mr. Friedkin has so thoroughly mastered, it's the car chases and shootouts and eye-catching settings that are truly the heart of the matter". The staff at Variety partially agreed with this sentiment, calling the film over the top in their mixed review saying "[E]ngrossing and diverting enough on a moment-to-moment basis but is overtooled ... what conversation there is proves wildly overloaded with streetwise obscenities, so much so that it becomes something of a joke".

In a scathingly negative review for the film, The Washington Post's Paul Attanasio predicted box office failure, saying the picture would "live briefly and die quickly in L.A., where God hath no wrath like a studio executive with bad grosses... [it is]... overheated and recklessly violent", dismissing it with sarcasm as not even living up to the "high standard established by Starsky and Hutch". This feeling was shared by Time Magazine, who wrote about the film's "brutal, bloated car-chase sequence pilfered from Friedkin's nifty The French Connection", and called it "a fetid movie hybrid: Miami Vile".

William Friedkin singled out the movie as one of his favorites: "I love the film, and I value my films or don’t value them in a different way. When I think of them in terms of success, I think of how close I came to my original vision of it. The two films where I came extremely close were To Live and Die in L.A. and Sorcerer.

The car chase featured in the film has consistently been ranked among the best car chase sequences on film, often appearing alongside The French Connection (another Friedkin directed film), The Seven-Ups, The Blues Brothers, Ronin and Bullitt. In 2025, The Hollywood Reporter listed To Live and Die in L.A. as having the best stunts of 1985.

In retrospective reviews, To Live and Die in L.A. has been lauded for its kinetic pacing, moral ambiguity, and its stylish take on 1980s crime cinema.

Accolades

Wins

Cognac Festival du Film Policier: Audience Award; William Friedkin; 1986.
Stuntman Awards: Stuntman Award; Best Feature Film Vehicular Stunt, Dick Ziker and Eddy Donno; Most Feature Film Spectacular Sequence, Dick Ziker; 1986.

Proposed television series

In 2015, William Friedkin announced plans to develop a TV series based on the movie for WGN America. This show was never put into production, and in 2021 WGN was converted into a general news network.

References

External links

To Live and Die in L.A. film trailer at YouTube