Taking a Chance

Anyways, so it goes like this: Gill Grissom is chasing after the Green Goblin, because the latter has been knocking up funny money in Los Angeles. All the while, the band who told everyone to "Wang Chung tonight" soundtracks matters with their own unique brand of 80s rock.

Alright, not the best synopsis. But as I've recently mentioned To Live and Die In L.A. a couple of times recently, I thought I’d jot down a few words. To surmise in a tad more detail: Secret Service agent Richard Chance wants to snare expert counterfeiter Eric Masters. Both are a bit "on the edge", as a doctor would say: Chance base jumps off bridges for kicks, Masters creates works of art, then burns them. There’s probably some kind of metaphor at work here, and you may have also spotted the symbolism with their names – Chance takes chances while Masters is a master at his work. Brilliant.

Chance’s state of mind isn't helped when his best friend and partner decides to go snooping round Master’s workshop without back up and catches a bad case of ‘Shotinheaditis’. Not that he was helping his odds by being three days from retirement and stating at the start of the movie (when he and Chance saved El Prez from a terrorist) that he’s "too old for this shit". Honestly, a bit of genre savviness could have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

Now even more unhinged and determined to catch Masters, Chance is teamed up with idealistic rookie John Vukovich, who he drags along on his increasingly desperate plays. These include leaning on his ex-con informant/reluctant lover, whom he threatens to revoke their parole unless she keeps coming up with leads.

This was seen as a return to form for Friedkin, who’d entered a bit of a slump following his 70s peak when he directed The French Connection and The Exorcist, and as he captured the feeling of a freezing New York winter, he gets a feel of a smog-ridden LA down pat. He’s also helped by two great leads: Petersen gives his character a feeling of self-belief bordering on thinking he’s invincible. After a car chase, and surrounded by armed mystery men, it seems as if the game is up for Chance: instead, he ploughs the wrong way down the motorway, much to the screams of terror from his partner.

Better still, however, is Willem Defoe as Masters. He’s in full-on creepy mode here, as a man who has no second thoughts of killing anybody who gets in the way of business. Despite that, there’s a sense of realism as he gets a few good hidings when he does try to act the enforcer, being saved by luck or his henchman.

The support cast is solid, with my particular favourite being Dean Stockwell as Masters’ sleazy lawyer. At one point, he explains he got a client off a serious charge by stating the search warrant had the house colour incorrect. He waves away this, as well as his work with a murderous counterfeiter, as "just business" that somebody else would do if he didn't. John Pankow is also great as Vukovich, the hapless agent caught up in Chance’s insanity, slowly getting in way too deep as matters move towards an inevitably messy conclusion. It’s also a bit of a shocker, one of the few times I almost jumped up in surprise from a film.

Over the weekend, I re-watched L.A. Confidential, and at times To Live and Die seems a spiritual prequel/sequel – showing the city 30 years on. The music, by Wang Chung, is certainly a far cry from Dean Martin, all harsh keyboards, crashing synth drums. They do a good enough job, with the title track especially standing out as a classic bit of 80s pop.

But mostly, to compare the two films shows how faster life got. Richard Chance seems to be constantly moving, in need of another rush. Strangely, the car chase itself appears only speedy by the nature of it’s editing: the cars themselves are bog standard saloons rather than exotic sports cars, perhaps playing on expectations after earlier sightings of Masters’ Ferrari.

As a package, it screams "1985" in the same way an episode of Miami Vice might, but manages to overcome it's period details. In fact, I'm a little surprised that it hasn't been remade. Surprised, and probably very glad.