One of the best film soundtracks of the last 10 or 50 years, I wore out a cassette in my Infiniti M-30 in 1991. I also wore out a VHS copy of the film. I now have a CD of the soundtrack, but this 1985 masterpiece needs to get to DVD as of last hour.
"Jimmy Hart, was more than my partner, he was my best friend for 7 years," Richie Chance tells naive G-man John Vukovich. "He was the most righteous guy I ever knew...He had 2 days left, that was it." Chance knows who killed his partner and swears vendetta. It's a plot that's been done countless times, but when the words are venomously spewed by Chance (I'm gonna get Masters and I don't give a sh*t how I do it,"), it's not just talk. It's a prophecy. And suddenly you're on fresh ground.
William Friedkin knows cop dramas, he knows formula and he seldom screws up. Working William L. Petersen, Wilem DaFoe and Dean Stockwell, like the plate of a fake $20 bill, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA is an incredible drama showing a City of Angels that is anything but angelic. This is the seamy side of LA, skeletonly explored in a handful of films, but here the grit sticks like downtown smog.
Great line: (From Stockwell's character): "I make no apologies for being a lawyer. If I hadn't taken the case, someone else would have without a doubt."
And you have to give DaFoe's Rick Masters his due: cop killer, thief, pyromaniac, voyeur... He drives a Ferrari too.
This is a modern classic.
"Jimmy Hart, was more than my partner, he was my best friend for 7 years," Richie Chance tells naive G-man John Vukovich. "He was the most righteous guy I ever knew...He had 2 days left, that was it." Chance knows who killed his partner and swears vendetta. It's a plot that's been done countless times, but when the words are venomously spewed by Chance (I'm gonna get Masters and I don't give a sh*t how I do it,"), it's not just talk. It's a prophecy. And suddenly you're on fresh ground.
William Friedkin knows cop dramas, he knows formula and he seldom screws up. Working William L. Petersen, Wilem DaFoe and Dean Stockwell, like the plate of a fake $20 bill, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA is an incredible drama showing a City of Angels that is anything but angelic. This is the seamy side of LA, skeletonly explored in a handful of films, but here the grit sticks like downtown smog.
Great line: (From Stockwell's character): "I make no apologies for being a lawyer. If I hadn't taken the case, someone else would have without a doubt."
And you have to give DaFoe's Rick Masters his due: cop killer, thief, pyromaniac, voyeur... He drives a Ferrari too.
This is a modern classic.