ReggieSantori

I'm as surprised as you are. Make no mistake, I know Michael Mann is awesome and I knew the cast was good, but I wasn't expecting this film to be such a treat! Some things I noticed from the trailer that appeared to be possible strikes against proved very well used. This film knows exactly what to do with hand held digital cinematography.

The story is a simple one. An LA cab driver who's letting life pass him by picks up the wrong fare. Cruise forces Foxx to take him around the city all night to perform various murders. The cops think Foxx is the murderer, but one detective doesn't buy it. The set up could have lead to a drab, standard action picture. A creative, naturalistic treatment results in a highly immersive, very enjoyable film. This film takes you to Los Angeles with complete texture- it's as if you're really there. The soundtrack is also awesome. The performances from the two leads are fantastic. All in all it is a thrilling and realistic film.

And I wasn't joking when I said it's the best. No other film I've seen this year (and I've seen quite a few) can quite measure up to this one. This is the one that I can honestly say I have no reservations about.

Yes, that is Wang Chung on the soundtrack, and not just for the songs, but for the entire score! Why? William Friedkin, who once made us all respect him with THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE EXORCIST must have thought it was time for a change and made this 80s monstrosity. He's thoroughly responsible for it, too. On his DVD commentary, he admits to writing much of the script, selecting William L. Petersen for the lead, and hiring Wang Chung, telling them "not to do a piece with a beginning or an end". The result is dreadful and uneven. The best thing about this movie is its car chase, and that can't hold a candle to the brilliant piece of work in THE FRENCH CONNECTION.

The movie starts off with an assassination attempt on the president, which is thwarted by secret service agent Petersen and his aging partner. His partner is retiring in a few days, but must go out on one last case. He goes after counterfeiter Masters (Willem Dafoe) and is promptly blown away by him, giving Petersen a revenge motive to take down Dafoe at any cost. That's the main plot. The details are that both the hero and the villain sleep with girls who don't like them, the hero has a new partner who's afraid of breaking the rules, and the villain has a lawyer who isn't too particular about them. For some reason, any mention of Petersen's connection to the secret service stops after the opening scene, and he seems to be an ordinary cop. John Turturro shows up somewhere in the mix as a man working for Masters, and is ultimately a forgettable side note. It's a funny thing that in a movie for which money was actually counterfeited under supervision of an ex-con, the funny money itself spends almost as little time in the movie as does the secret service. In Friedkin's own THE FRENCH CONNECTION, the heroine was also real, and an ever-present part of the story (who could forget the quality test scene?). I guess there's only one way to say it: Friedkin lost it.

For some reason this movie has multiple scene including male nudity and people getting kicked in the crotch. This movie is a bit like a porno: you see every character naked but you never get to know who they really are. Likewise, TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., as a movie, is all surface. On top of that, the surface isn't very pleasing. The canned Wang Chung score, the lifeless photography, and the poor transitions add up to a movie that is as ugly as it is empty.

A strange set of circumstances and the movie's only good twist send Petersen and his new partner, Pankow on a doomed mission to abduct a man carrying a vast sum of money, bringing gunmen down on them and resulting in the now famous car chase (Wang Chung fans beware, it's un-scored!). Here we finally get some interesting photography and the action the move had been sorely lacking. From there, the plot steers for tragedy and a conclusion that feel somewhat inevitable. This, however, is mishandled, giving the viewer yet another disappointment to remember it by. I won't spoil it, because it really isn't worth spoiling.

This movie is nothing special. At best it's a flawed cop drama, at worst a stain on several careers. You can get what you're looking for better stronger, faster, and just plain not screwed up. See Friedkin's big movies from the 70s instead. TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. is a sad reminder that we can no longer count on him to deliver quality cinema.

I love the occasional low-budget exploitation horror movie. They're usually good for a laugh. LUKAS' CHILD, like most of the movies in its genre, has its share of funny bits and t&a. It is, however, too slow and repetitive to be really entertaining. The plot has a smalltime Hollywood production company sacrificing girls to a creature referred to only as "the child." From that creepy, promising start, we descend into boredom with the introduction of a detective investigating the disappearances of beautiful babes. He's semi-good-looking, and the women he questions are all hot and interested in him, but, honestly, who needs him? The real star of this show is Lukas, an old man in a bathrobe who is priest to a strange cult. The guy can act and his dialogue isn't bad either. He and the victims have some good scene together that have a dramatic quality that makes you forget for a minute that this is an exploitation movie you're watching. The funny bits of this movie are good stuff, too. One of Lukas's thugs (who a witness described as looking "like Charles Manson") abducts women by night and takes them back to the cult's lair in coffins. It's a pretty funny sight to see a pick-up truck driving through LA at night with a coffin not quit fitting in its bed. There are some pieces that don't fit, though. Two children witness the strange goings on and dutifully inform the police. The kids really bring this movie down by a lot (they're right out of the 50s). If this thing had been made a mere two years later, the influence of SE7EN would have improved the whole detective angle by a lot, and this movie would have been much better. As it is, this film suffers from the stagnant state of the horror film at the time. It's a pity, too, because Lukas and his child were a pretty interesting idea (at east until the child is shown). LUKAS' CHILD is a fun movie watch with friends while having a few beers. At the very least, its better than the other three movies on the DVD horror-anthology I found it on. If you do happen to find this movie and for some reason want to watch it, keep your expectations low and you might enjoy it.