Really great, really nasty, really mean movie (but why should a movie about criminals and naked obsession be anything but mean and nasty?). This is my favorite "the cup is half empty" type of movie (actually, according to this movie the cup is completely empty, and if you want a taste you better kick your way to the front of the line and shoot the water bearer in the back of the head). The bad guys are bad and the good guys are even worse. William Peterson is just dead-on here as a charming psychopath who happens to be a Treasury agent. Willem Dafoe is equally good as the creepy artistic psychopath who happens to be a counterfitter. John Pankow (years before he was wacky cousin Ira on "Mad About You") is also very good as the innocent partner who learns from the wrong guy how to be a cop (but learns very well). And John Turturro gets to have fun in a small role that was a precursor to his Bernie Bernbuam in "Miller's Crossing".
Friedkin puts these characters in the middle of a very freaky, very stylized Los Angeles. And, because he's William Friedkin and he basically invented the modern car chase in "The French Connection", he goes and out-does himself with an AMAZING chase on the highway. To fully appreciate how amazing it is, watch an old "CHiPs" re-run - see how there are only three cars on the whole interstate and they're all going 15mph - then watch as a car is hurdled head-on through six lanes of bumper to bumper speeding traffic, mostly done in long shots so you always see sixty vehiles at a time! Great stuff (John Frankenhimer recently tried to duplicate this effect in "Ronin", but the Paris by-ways are nothing compared to the L.A. freeway). Come for the frantic car chase, stay for the relentlessly bleak attitude, Dude.
Friedkin puts these characters in the middle of a very freaky, very stylized Los Angeles. And, because he's William Friedkin and he basically invented the modern car chase in "The French Connection", he goes and out-does himself with an AMAZING chase on the highway. To fully appreciate how amazing it is, watch an old "CHiPs" re-run - see how there are only three cars on the whole interstate and they're all going 15mph - then watch as a car is hurdled head-on through six lanes of bumper to bumper speeding traffic, mostly done in long shots so you always see sixty vehiles at a time! Great stuff (John Frankenhimer recently tried to duplicate this effect in "Ronin", but the Paris by-ways are nothing compared to the L.A. freeway). Come for the frantic car chase, stay for the relentlessly bleak attitude, Dude.