Some people love money so much that they make their own.

In 1985’s To Live And Die In L.A., Williem DaFoe is magnetically evil as Rick Masters, a genius at counterfeiting who has gotten rich by selling other people fake money.  The film features a lengthy sequence showing how Masters makes his money and the viewer really is left feeling as if they’ve just watched an artist at work.  Masters has a talent and he’s a professional.  He’s good at what he does.  Unfortunately, he’s also a sociopath who is willing to kill just about anyone who he comes across.  There have been a lot of movies made about sympathetic counterfeiters.  They’re often portrayed as being quirky and rather likable individuals.  This is not one of those films.  DaFoe’s charisma makes it impossible to look away from Rick but he’s still not someone you would ever want to have to deal with for a prolonged period of time.  One gets the feeling that Rick eventually kills everyone that he does business with.

Secret Service agents Richard Chance (William Petersen) and John Vukovich (John Pankow) are investigating Masters.  They’re a classic crime movie partnership.  Vukovich is youngish and, when we first meet him, goes by-the-book.  Chance is a veteran member of the Secret Service, an impulsive loose cannon whose last partner was killed by Masters.  Chance is now obsessed with taking Masters down and he’s willing to do whatever it takes.  If that means threatening his lover and informant, the recently paroled Ruth (Darlanne Fluegel), so be it.  If that means defying the lawyers (represented by Dean Stockwell), so be it.  If that means committing crimes himself and nearly getting Vukovich killed in the process, so be it.  At first, Vukovich is horrified by Chance’s techniques but, as the film progresses, Vukovich comes to embrace Chance’s philosophy of doing whatever it takes.

What sets To Live and Die in L.A. apart from some other films is that, even as it concludes, it leaves us uncertain as to whether or not Chance and Vukovich’s actions were really worth it.  This is not a standard cops-vs-robbers film.  This is a William Friedkin film and he brings the same moral ambiguity that distinguished The French Connection to this film’s portrait of the Secret Service.  (When Chance isn’t chasing after a counterfeiter, he’s foiling an assassination attempt against the president.)

Like The French Connection, To Live and Die In L.A. features an pulse-pounding car chase, one that occurs as Chance and Vukovich make an escape from robbing a man who they believe to be a criminal.  (The man turns out to have been an FBI agent.)  This chase involves Chance and Vukovich driving the wrong way down a crowded freeway, desperately tying not to crash into any of the cars that are swerving out of the way.  It’s such an exciting scene that it’s easy to forget that Chance and Vukovich are actually escaping from committing a crime.  In The French Connection, Gene Hackman was chasing the man who tried to assassinate him.  In To Love and Die In L.A., Chance is fleeing the consequences of his own actions.

To Live and Die In L.A. holds up well.  DaFoe and Petersen both give charismatic performance but, for me, it really is John Pankow who carries the film.  Vukovich’s transformation from being a straight-laced member of law enforcement to being a doppelganger of his partner is both exciting and a little disturbing,  To Live and Die In L.A. is a crime film that leaves you wondering how far one can go battling the bad guys before becoming one of them.