To Live and Die In L.A.

The real stars of the movie

To Live and Die In L.A. is a 1985 American crime-thriller film, based on the novel of the same name by Gerald Petievich and directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection).

The film stars William Petersen as Secret Service agent Richard Chance, a Cowboy Cop type determined to take down Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe), the counterfeiter who shot Chance's partner. It also features an exceptionally '80s soundtrack by Wang Chung.

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Tropes used in To Live and Die In L.A. include:

• Amoral Attorney: Bob Grimes (Dean Stockwell) doesn't particularly care that Masters is a criminal and argues that he's just doing the job someone else would; when he helps the cops later on, he's solely looking out for his own neck and his own wallet. Until it's revealed that he was trying to manipulate Vukovich on Masters' behalf the whole time.
• Anti-Hero: Chance is either a firm Type V or a very dark Type IV.
• Arrested for Heroism: Almost happens to Chance in the airport.
• Break the Cutie: Vukovich. As the movie progresses, Chance's behavior takes an increasing toll on the poor guy, leading to several meltdowns and a Heroic BSOD.
• By-The-Book Cop: Quite literally Chance's superior, who is able to cite regulations chapter and verse, and actually has "the book" to hand.
• Bullying a Dragon: Chance. He dives headfirst into any kind of dangerous situation, both on and off the job. According to his first partner, he should learn to take it easy every now and then, otherwise he won't live to see retirement. And... he doesn't.
• Burn, Baby, Burn: One of Masters' first scenes has him burning one of his paintings.
• Chase Scene: One of the most celebrated in cinema.
• Colliding Criminal Conspiracies: Inverted when Chance and Vukovich's robbery for buy money ends up wrecking an unrelated FBI sting operation.
• Counterfeit Cash
• Cowboy Cop: Chance--he's brash with authority figures, doesn't like it when the rules get in the way of his plans, takes evidence without following protocol and, oh yes, uses blackmail and armed robbery to further his investigation. All for justice, mind you. Also, Vukovich at the end of the movie.

Chance: I'm gonna bag Masters, and I don't give a shit how I do it.

• Crapsack World
• Dead Sidekick: Jimmy Hart (Michael Green), embodies this trope; because he's getting too old for this, he decides to retire to spend more time fishing; two days before retirement, he bites the bullet.
• Downer Ending: And HOW.
• Depraved Bisexual: Serena, Bianca and quite possibly Masters himself.
• The Dragon: Jack, to Masters.
• The Eighties: Ronald Reagan, Wang Chung, fantastic big hair, and truly retro credits fonts.
• Evil Versus Evil
• Friend or Foe: The undercover FBI man is actually shot by his fellow agents. They've parked their vehicle on an overpass and are shooting at the robbers with an Armalite rifle when another vehicle crashes into theirs. A startled agent clutches at the rifleman's shoulder and the weapon discharges, with the bullet killing the undercover agent.
• Guilt Ridden Accomplice: Vukovich.
• Heroic BSOD: Vukovich after the sting goes bad.
• Hollywood Police Driving Academy: Avoided: Chance pulls off the LA equivalent of flying the Millennium Falcon into an asteroid field with flying colors.
• Indecisive Deconstruction: Arguably, the whole Cowboy Cop trope gets deconstructed, as Chance's rule-breaking has serious, negative consequences: His withholding of information from his superiors makes them unwilling to help him; the convict he manages to bully the DA into releasing beats him up and escapes, and his plan to get the buy money for the sting goes horribly, horribly wrong. On the other hand, Chance does recapture Cody, and the sting does go down; furthermore, the movie ends with Vukovich becoming the new Cowboy Cop, to triumphant Wang Chung music.
• The Infiltration
• The Informant: Bianca, Ruth.
• Jerkass: Chance is a dick.
• Male Frontal Nudity: During one of Chance's "visits" with Ruth, his girlfriend/informant.
• Meaningful Name: Richard Chance, Rick Masters.
• Off on a Technicality: Grimes mentions that he got someone off because he argued that a search warrant which imprecisely described the color of a house was invalid.
• Retirony: Jimmy Hart.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog
• Sociopathic Hero: By the mid-point Chance has been established as one, engineering a robbery to get the money Masters asked, but even before that, he casually mistreats his girlfriend/informant Ruth, and he says he'd immediately get her back in jail should she ever stop being his CI.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Well, it was contemporary when it first came out...
• What the Hell, Hero?: Pretty much every one of Chance's actions during the investigation results in this, especially when he accidentally gets an undercover FBI agent killed while sticking him up to get the money for his sting operation.