William Petersen

TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.: obsession without an iota of redemption

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Photo caption: William L. Petersen in TO LIVE AND TO DIE IN L.A. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

It’s William Friedkin Week at The Movie Gourmet, and we’re looking at three of the director’s more overlooked films. First up is his 1985 neo-noir To Live and Die in L.A., now a cult fave of noir fans. It’s a study of amoral obsession without any iota of redemption. Along with directing, Friedkin co-wrote the screenplay.

The secret service agent Chance (William L. Petersen) is consumed with tracking down the counterfeiter Masters (Willem Dafoe). Both are very dangerous men, and it’s pretty clear that no more than one of them is going to survive. Chance’s new partner Vuckovich (John Pankow) has to go along for the ride – and it’s a doozy.

Friedkin begins To Live and Die in L.A. with a thrilling set piece, involving terrorism in a highrise, that introduces Chance as a nervy stud. Then we meet Masters, and learn that he is anything but an ordinary criminal. Just when we have caught our breath, Friedkin toys with us in a scene that establishes that Chance is a reckless adrenaline freak.

The stage is now set for a manhunt, and Chance unleashes all his ruthlessness. Poor Vuckovich stands in for the audience as he and we are repeatedly shocked by Chance’s amorality, even corruption.

The car chase in Friedkin’s The French Connection remains the gold standard, but the one in To Live and Die in L.A. is also extraordinary. This one careens through LA’s freeways (including wrong way on the freeway), industrial areas and the cement channel of the Los Angeles River. The LA River has since been the site of countless movie chases, but it first was prominently featured in Point Blank and To Live and Die in L.A. may have been the river’s first car chase in a mainstream movie. All of the action is photographed by master cinematographer Robby Mueller.

Of course, along with the thrills of the chase and Chance’s astonishing behavior, we also get a counterfeiter procedural as Masters combines art, craft and greed as he prints his own faux money.

Willem Dafoe in TO LIVE AND TO DIE IN L.A. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

This was Willem Dafoe’s first major film role, just before Platoon and The Last Temptation of Christ. Dafoe, in an understated performance, oozes menace as the smooth, but very lethal, Masters.

William Petersen inhabits Chance with none of the gruff lovability he would show on CSI. It’s a balls-to-the-wall performance. Interestingly, Petersen didn’t get high profile jobs for the next fifteen years until CSI.

Dean Stockwell is perfect as a shady lawyer. Debra Feuer, John Tuturro and the renegade filmmaker Robert Downey, Sr., also appear in supporting roles.

William L. Petersen and John Pankow in TO LIVE AND TO DIE IN L.A. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The ending is so dark that the studio insisted that Friedkin shoot an alternative ending, in which a main character improbably survives. Fortunately, that alternative ending was not affixed to the final cut of the film. You can view the alternative ending on YouTube, with the comments of Friedkin, Petersen and Pankow.

To Live and to Die in L.A. is available on Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory and in 4K from Kino Lorber. I’ll let you know when you can stream it or if it shows up again on TV.

DVD of the Week: Detachment

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My DVD pick this week is the gripping drama Detachment, with Adrien Brody’s best performance since winning an Oscar for The Pianist.  Detachment is on my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.

Detachment is a gripping drama about the failure of American public schools from the teachers’ point of view.   Adrien Brody plays a long-term sub on a 60-day assignment at a high school that has burned out virtually every other teacher.  I can’t use the words  “grim” or “bleak” to describe this school environment – it’s downright hellish.    It’s making their very souls decay.

The students are rebellious and disrespectful, and somehow manage to be zealously apathetic.  No parents support the teachers, but some enthusiastically abuse and undermine them.  Administrators demand better test results but offer little support beyond “flavor of the month” educational fads.   The ills of the high school in Detachment are exaggerated – this is not a documentary – but there isn’t an urban public high school in American that hasn’t endured some elements of Detachment.

Brody won an Oscar for 2002’s The Pianist, and, in Detachment, he makes the most of his best role since.  Brody plays a haunted and damaged man with strong core beliefs, who, faced with a menu of almost hopeless choices, picks his battles.

Detachment’s cast is unusually deep, and the performances are outstanding.   James Caan is particularly outstanding as the veteran educator whose wicked sense of humor can still disarm the most obnoxiously insolent teen.  Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) is excellent as the young teacher hanging on to some idealism.  Blythe Danner and William Petersen (CSI) are the veterans who have seen it all.  Lucy Liu plays the educator who is clinging by her fingerprints, trying not to flame out like the basket case played by Tim Blake Nelson.  Marcia Gay Harden and Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Cedar Rapids) are dueling administrators.  Sami Gayle and Betty Kaye are superb as two troubled kids.  Louis Zorich delivers a fine performance as Brody’s failing grandfather.  There’s just not an ordinary performance in the movie.

For all its despair, Detachment doesn’t let the audience sink into a malaise.  Director Tony Kaye (American History X) keeps thing moving, and his choices in structure and pacing work well.  This is an intense film with a dark viewpoint.  It is also a very ambitious, thoughtful and originally crafted movie – one well worth seeing.

Cinequest – Detachment: nightmare for teachers

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Detachment is a gripping drama about the failure of American public schools from the teachers’ point of view.   Adrien Brody plays a long-term sub on a 60-day assignment at a high school that has burned out virtually every other teacher.  I can’t use the words  “grim” or “bleak” to describe this school environment – it’s downright hellish.    It’s making their very souls decay.

The students are rebellious and disrespectful, and somehow manage to be zealously apathetic.  No parents support the teachers, but some enthusiastically abuse and undermine them.  Administrators demand better test results but offer little support beyond “flavor of the month” educational fads.   The ills of the high school in Detachment are exaggerated – this is not a documentary – but there isn’t an urban public high school in American that hasn’t endured some elements of Detachment.

Brody won an Oscar for 2002’s The Pianist, and, in Detachment, he makes the most of his best role since.  Brody plays a haunted and damaged man with strong core beliefs, who, faced with a menu of almost hopeless choices, picks his battles.

Detachment’s cast is unusually deep, and the performances are outstanding.   James Caan is particularly outstanding as the veteran educator whose wicked sense of humor can still disarm the most obnoxiously insolent teen.  Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) is excellent as the young teacher hanging on to some idealism.  Blythe Danner and William Petersen (CSI) are the veterans who have seen it all.  Lucy Liu plays the educator who is clinging by her fingerprints, trying not to flame out like the basket case played by Tim Blake Nelson.  Marcia Gay Harden and Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Cedar Rapids) are dueling administrators.  Sami Gayle and Betty Kaye are superb as two troubled kids.  Louis Zorich delivers a fine performance as Brody’s failing grandfather.  There’s just not an ordinary performance in the movie.

For all its despair, Detachment doesn’t let the audience sink into a malaise.  Director Tony Kaye (American History X) keeps thing moving, and his choices in structure and pacing work well.  This is an intense film with a dark viewpoint.  It is also a very ambitious, thoughtful and originally crafted movie – one well worth seeing.