To Live And Die In L.A., William Friedkin's taut action thriller about the efforts of two Secret Services agents (William Petersen & John Pankow) to track down and arrest a notorious counterfeiter (Willem Dafoe), strangely doesn't have a great reputation and is, in fact, barely mentioned at all in discussion about great thrillers. This is a shame because To Live And Die In L.A. is a great piece of work and represents a return to form for Friedkin after the disastrous Sorcerer (1977) and the highly controversial Cruising (1980). Like Thief, To Live And Die In L.A. is heavy on the machismo. William Petersen, who is best known for his work on CSI, gives a great performance as a man who is obsessed by his job and thus sacrifices his personal life. Again, like with Thief, Friedkin hired real counterfeiters to assist with the counterfeiting scenes. This backfired when some of the fake money leaked out of the production and was traced back to the set. Three FBI agents from Washington paid a visit and interviewed several members of the crew (including Friedkin) but the matter was quickly settled. Similar to Friedkin's earlier film The French Connection (1971) this film has a chaotic and masterfully choreographed car chase sequence that is up there with the famous one in Bullitt (1968). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n40H9qcNTc
