To Live and Die in L. A.

Actually, if I had given it any thought, I probably would have sworn never to see another William Friedkin picture after the abominable “Cruising,” figuring that the guy was washed up as a director with any story sensibilities. But I didn't, and the ads for the new one were so flashy that there I was, sitting through it. (Who am I to turn up my nose at any good cops and robbers with style?) Besides, it has the best title of any movie since "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" or maybe "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" (sports, or what?) or maybe even "Bolero" (that last was a joke). So what do we have here, anyway? The best way to characterize this picture is to say that this is the picture that “Vice Squad” was supposed to be but wasn't. I mean: flashy visceral entertainment, kinetic as all get out, gritty, urban, mean and tough, with great action, and settings that are almost electric in their intensity. Talk about gritty--I never saw so many people get kicked in the groin in one movie in my life (which, when you think about it, is the way any vicious dirty streetfighter (is that redundant?) worth his salt would start a fight) (none of that TV style Marquis de Queensbury here, these guys just wanna hurt the other guy).

Interestingly, the hero himself is the recipient of a couple of groin shots (I kept wondering when he was going to wise up and watch out for that foot), which is perhaps some indication of how astute he is as a hero. The picture also has a propensity for showing people getting shot in the face, as opposed to less visible parts of the anatomy, and I've gotta give 'em credit here: this movie does not toy with gunplay; when somebody gets shot, it looks real; not just in the way the bullet hits them, which is real, enough (here it's more a question of bullet splatters, rather than bullet hits) but in the way they react when they do get shot. They scream in fear and pain, and writhe around in agony, and scream some more (and at about this time somebody usually steps in and blows his head off). Getting shot looks painful, not all glamorized and sanitized like it does on TV. I think if gunshot wounds were depicted more realistically on TV shows, there would be a decrease in gun crimes. It's just too awful.

But I digress. I guess Friedkin is not all washed up. The story has snap and pace (written by Friedkin and an author whose name I can't spell and based on said author's novel of the same title) and the photography is stunning. It moves crisply from sequence to sequence, as an obsessed Secret Service man relentlessly hunts down the ruthless counterfeiter who killed his partner. The counterfeiter is played by William Dafoe, who was the chief bad guy in Walter Hill's “Streets of Fire” (which I really liked) and in fact the two pictures have certain qualities of motion and lighting and clarity in common. Hill’s picture was more fanciful, and certainly more humorous. Another Hill picture I am reminded of here is “48 Hrs.” But “48 Hrs.” was much funnier, though again the two pictures share a certain energy you don't see enough of.

Friedkin's picture is notable for its lack of humor. It is just not a funny picture (well, there is one funny line) but then again, it doesn't look as though it was meant to be. The picture is notable, because it really is a slice of awful life; the villain is not some mastermind heading a huge evil organization, but just a counterfeiter, albeit a good one, not to mention vicious. Dafoe is excellent here, exuding a kind of seductive evil, at once intriguing and repellent; in short, he's scary and believable, not histrionic, and certainly not invincible, just good at being a criminal. The good guy, the Secret Service Man, is also believable, in a certain obtuse way. He is no superhero, as evidenced by the groin kicks he takes, but just dogged in his pursuit. The filmmakers indulge in an affectation here: to show how nervy and unconcerned with death he is, they show him at his hobby, namely, jumping off bridges with a rope tied to his ankle. They take the trouble to set this up, so you can hardly blame them when they flash back to it during his life and death car chase. Still.

Friedkin keeps his performers hustling through a landscape that really looks like it is from another planet much of the time, and he even manages to breathe new life into some of the cliches (including the aforementioned car chase) but alas, not all of them. Much of the L. A. shown here is so awful that it made ME not want to live there, and you know what THAT means. Everybody is a creep. All the shots are flaming colors or pastels, and blood red suns, all very Miami Vice-ish, but even bigger. Not to steal a notion, but there are times when the picture looks like the biggest, most expensive music video ever made, an impression supported by the film's score; it’s by the group Wang Chung, and for once, a rock soundtrack that sounds like concern for the movie was at least as great as concern for soundtrack record sales, if not greater. The music is marvelously moody and appropriate, the group's faintly otherworldly sound well suited to the strange goings-on in the City of Angels.

So where does all this fall apart, you may ask. I'm getting to that. It's partly that Friedkin, despite a good effort, is ultimately undone by the conventions of his genre. As the picture roils along, it begins to look more and more like the most expensive TV episode ever made, utterly devoid of any wit or warmth, a kind of TV-noir, in electric blue (are you getting this?). It's the sensual equivalent of the visual flatness of videotape when compared to film, if you get my drift (I'm not sure I get my drift. but at least I know what I mean). No real heart, it just goes through some very fancy motions--all glitter. Part of the problem too is that the hero gets more sullen and unlikeable and... well obsessed as the film goes on. I never find obsessed people to be sympathetic characters. I didn't like the hero much in the beginning, and as time went on, I liked him less and less, until it got to the point where I was actively disliking him. The result is that when we watch him bend (and break) the rules, instead of cheering him, I found it somewhat distasteful. He's almost as yucky as a villain might be in another, less intense movie. Disliking a film's main character really sabotages one's rapport with the film.

I will admit that the picture deals with the problem of a disagreeable protagonist in a genuine and efficient way, but then I never said there were no clever things to be seen. The problem still exists for most of the picture, and for that reason one’s port of entry to the picture is damaged. At times I almost found myself rooting for the villain, but I'm not sure that that was intentional, and besides, he wasn't all that likable either. But the biggest problem with the picture is perhaps best emblemized by one thing that I really liked: the title. Think about it: “To Live and Die in L. A.” The title, and the picture, are, in a word, pompous. It is not just a cop story we have here, but William Friedkin attempting to define a place, a city, a state of being, an entire cultural archetype, and not just any cultural archetype, but the L. A. archetype, perhaps the most firmly entrenched of any in the public mind. But he is attempting to define it in the most prosaic and banal terms—a cop show. Everything in this picture is so cool and so understated that it reeks of a kind of close-minded certainty--"we don't have to prove anything to anybody"—because this is The Way It Is, and if you don't agree, you just don't know any better. It is awfully presumptuous of Friedkin, or anybody, to try to illuminate a state of existence using a format (the cop show) which by now is so common, and so fundamental to our cultural heritage, that it is second nature to everybody, whether they live in L. A. or Peoria, Chiniak, or Parsippany.

It just doesn't wash for me: the environment isn't presented for your consideration; instead, it is rammed down your throat. Friedkin does a number of twisty little things that add snap and color, but in the context in which they are presented, they stand out obnoxiously as Twisty Little Things, designed to show you the inside story on living and dying. After seeing some of them, you don't even feel that surprised—it’s almost as if you had predicted them, even though you hadn't. And Friedkin ends with a nice doppelganger touch, which just reeks of message: "this is the continuity of things—no matter what happens, the nature of the city prevails, the cycle comes around once more. Nothing ever changes, even if the characters are different." I don't know. Maybe I'm just being a spoilsport because the picture is somewhat nihilistic and ultimately a little depressing. After all, it is well crafted, and fun to look at, which is more than can be said for most movies these days. But I can't help but think that, on a cultural and intellectual level, it bites off a bit more than it can chew.