Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

albertsmith-32785 William Friedkin's To Live and Die in LA is an underrated action thriller which deserves more recognition, now that sufficient time has passed since its release. Based on a novel by a former secret service agent, to live and die in la reeks of atmosphere and is probably one of the finest valentines to the city of Los Angeles. William Peterson plays an undercover cop from the US secret service agency whose goal is to get to bad guy Willem Defoe who has killed his job partner. The film is one adrenaline ride and contains one of the most effective car chase sequence ever put on film (which shouldn't be a surprise since the director also made the lauded French Connection with another memorable car chase sequence). The soundtrack by Wang Chung suits the tone of the film and the cinematography by Robby Mueller deserves a mention as well. One of the finest of its genre this film is a great watch.

PimpinAinttEasy Dear William Friedkin, To Live and Die in LA is the kind of movie that the likes of Sanjay Gupta, Rajiv Rai and Abbas Mastan aspires to make but fails.It is sleazy - there is a hardcore sex scene, men casually undressing in each other's company, erotic dancing, strip clubs, a bisexual villain and even a gay kiss.It is a police procedural - while not as gritty as The French Connection, it did have many of the same elements like officers breaking the law to catch criminals and facing heat from superiors.It has loyalty as one of its major themes - loyalty between police officers and even criminals.It has a cheesy 80's score - the background score was a bit of a letdown. There is a heated debate on the film's IMDb message board about this. I found myself warming to the score as the film progressed. But I guess there were better cheesy 80's songs that you could have used. Some of the songs were simply awful.It is a film of place - as the name suggests. There are some beautiful long shots but some of the action takes place in really ugly warehouses and wastelands. It is not a very pretty film to watch on a normal DVD.It has great action scenes - while nowhere as good as the ones in The Sorcerer and The French Connection, the car chase in To Live and Die in LA was quite thrilling.It is peppered with eccentric characters - especially the two protagonists who share a woman and nothing is certain about their sexuality.It has some great performances - by William Petersen, John Turturro and Willem Dafoe.Despite all this, it is not in the same league as some of your 70s films. It is a bit of a let down considering your work in the 70s. But anyway, thanks for making such a sexy and entertaining film.Best Regards, Pimpin.(7/10)

mgtbltp Beautifully bleak and highly stylistic. This film actually makes a lethally smoggy industrial West Coast/LA sunrise jaw dropingly gorgeous, perverting the normal aesthetic. Palm trees compete with power poles and high tension lines that diffuse into a yellowish soup. Rail yards and wrecking yards are bathed in golden light. All this segues into a montage of a series of varied illegal counterfeit $20 bill transactions. The tale is about three US Secret Service Agents who are headquartered in L.A. When not providing security for a visiting POTUS (President of the United States) they do field investigation work for the US Treasury, targeting counterfeiters. Richard Chance (Petersen) and Jim Hart (Greene) are top notch agents. Chance the cock of the walk, is a bit reckless, a bit overconfident, a bit of a jock, a bit shady, he even shacks up in a "safe house" with a stripper Ruth Lanier (Darlanne Fluegel) that he uses as a "stoolie with benefits". He holds her probation and the ability to see her daughter as leverage. Agent Hart is the veteran, steadfast, partner who is almost a father figure to Chance. A day after Hart's retirement party at the Dog Run Bar, and with only a few days left on the clock, Hart heads off on one last surveillance assignment. He drives out into the desert to check on a warehouse suspected of housing counterfeiting equipment. With binoculars he checks out the site belonging to counterfeiter Rick Masters (Dafoe). Hart, thinking the site is deserted approaches and jumps the fence. He starts to poke around and finds a trash bag full of cropped currency paper in a dumpster. Masters and Jack, his bodyguard, surprise and kill Hart. Leading a team of agents to Masters desert warehouse Chance discovers a pool of blood soaking into the dirt from Hart's body lying in the dumpster. Chance gets assigned a stuffy new partner John Vukovich (Pankow), a no nonsense by the book professional. Chance tells John that he is making taking down Masters a personal vendetta. The film has a 80's techno Wang Chung pounding beat. The cast at that time (save for Dean Stockwell) where pretty much all unknowns. The mayhem ratchets up nicely and unpredictably throughout the film. It's an anti buddy cop film. Gritty, flamboyant, caustic, beautifully bleak 9/10

avik-basu1889 It's always been hit or miss for me with William Freidkin. I love The Exorcist and The French Connection. I also like Cruising which most people don't. But there a lot of his films that I am not at all fond of. Unfortunately "To Live and Die in L.A." falls in the latter category. Let's get the positives out of the way first. The cinematography is good. The opening credit sequence with the damaged cars and the seedy roadside low-lives perfectly sets the mood by throwing light on the dark side of the city. There are a number of interesting themes that are explored here like how far an individual can go to do the thing he thinks is right, can the supposedly moral always uphold his morality, questionable actions can reverse the tale and the hunter can become the hunted, how individuals are influenced by the filth that surrounds them in their own city, how everyone is playing a specific role to survive in the city,etc. Lastly the car chase is absolutely riveting as you would expect from a Freidkin film. Now let's talk about the flaws. The style of storytelling and the screenplay is very poor. With the interesting themes that are explored, this could have been a much better film with a better screenplay. But unfortunately this isn't the case. The cheesy 80s pop music trivialises everything that happens. The dialogues are very contrived and forced and the script involves too may unrealistic conveniences. Then there is the acting which is amateurish. I generally like Willlem Dafoe, but even he can't make up for the lack of acting from the rest of the cast and with dubbed over lines, the situation just gets worse. The film's themes had potential but unfortunately it fizzled out in the end.