After foiling an assassination attempt by an Islamic jihadist on President Reagan, Secret Service agents Richard Chance and Jimmy Hart are assigned as counterfeiting investigators in the Los Angeles field office.

Chance, who has earned a reputation for impulsive behavior, vows to his new partner, John Vukovich, that he will take Masters down by any means necessary.

Vukovich convinces Masters' attorney Bob Grimes to arrange a meeting between his client and the two agents, who pose as offshore bankers from Palm Springs seeking $1 million in fake bills.

Desperate to entrap Masters, Chance persuades Vukovich to aid him in robbing Thomas Ling, a man Ruth learned will be carrying $50,000 to purchase stolen diamonds.

Their next daily briefing reveals that Ling was an undercover FBI agent, but Chance remains determined to avenge Hart and continues their plan, paying Masters and arranging the $1 million exchange.

[4]: 224  The filmmaker was also fascinated by the "absolutely surrealistic nature" of the job of a Secret Service agent outside Washington, D.C.[5] When the film deal was announced, Petievich was investigated by a rival for a pending office promotion, and felt "a lot of resentment against me for making the movie" and "some animosity against me in the Secret Service" existed, exacerbated by the agent in the Los Angeles field office who suddenly resigned a few weeks after initiating the investigation.

[5] He called fellow Chicago actor John Pankow and brought him to Friedkin's apartment the day after being cast as Chance, recommending him for the role of Vukovich.

The basic plot, characters, and much of the dialogue of the film is drawn from Petievich's novel, but Friedkin added the opening terrorist sequence, the car chase, and clearer, earlier focus on the showdown between Chance and Masters.

[4]: 230 The director wanted to make an independent film and collaborate with people who could work fast, like cinematographer Robby Müller and his handpicked crew who were non-union members.

[5] For example, during the scene where Chance visits Ruthie at the bar where she works, Friedkin allowed Petersen and actress Darlanne Fluegel to devise their own blocking and told Müller, "Just shoot them.

The actor told Friedkin that they should do the stunt anyway so the director proposed that they treat it like a rehearsal but have the cameras rolling and shoot the scene, angering airport officials.

[4]: 234 The wrong-way car chase on a Los Angeles freeway sequence was one of the last things shot in the film and it took six weeks to shoot.

[5] Three weekends were spent on sections of the Terminal Island Freeway near Wilmington, California that were closed for four hours at a time to allow the crew to stage the chaotic chase.

[5] To satisfy the studio heads, he shot a second ending, in which Chance survives the shotgun blast and, presumably as an internal punishment, he and Vukovich are transferred to a remote Secret Service station in Alaska, and watch their boss Thomas Bateman being interviewed on television.

The website's consensus reads: "With coke fiends, car chases, and Wang Chung galore, To Live and Die in L.A. is perhaps the ultimate '80s action/thriller.

[11] Critic Janet Maslin was dismissive of the film, and wrote "Today, in the dazzling, superficial style that Mr. Friedkin has so thoroughly mastered, it's the car chases and shootouts and eye-catching settings that are truly the heart of the matter".

[12] David Ansen, critic for Newsweek, wrote "Shot with gritty flamboyance by Robby Muller, cast with a fine eye for fresh, tough-guy faces, To Live and Die in L.A. may be fake savage, but it's fun".

[13] The staff at Variety gave the film a mixed review and wrote that it was over the top: "[E]ngrossing and diverting enough on a moment-to-moment basis but is overtooled ... what conversation there is proves wildly overloaded with streetwise obscenities, so much so that it becomes something of a joke".

[14] In his scathing review for The Washington Post, Paul Attanasio predicted that it would fail at the box office, writing that it would "live briefly and die quickly in L.A., where God hath no wrath like a studio executive with bad grosses... [it is]... overheated and recklessly violent", dismissing it with sarcasm as not even living up to the "high standard established by Starsky and Hutch".

[15] Movie historian Leonard Maltin seemed to agree with Attanasio, giving the film 1.5 stars out of a possible four: "This picture is so gritty that it's hard to root for anybody... For a crack Secret Service agent and a master counterfeiter, both Dafoe and Petersen act pretty dumb...", adding that the terrific car chases and the Wang Chung music score were "not enough to counteract the bad taste this film leaves behind.

"[16] Jay Scott, in his review for The Globe and Mail, wrote "Pity poor Los Angeles: first the San Andreas fault and now this.

The thing about it is, To Live and Die in L.A., for all its amorality and downright immorality, is a cracker-jack thriller, tense and exciting and unpredictable, and more grimy fun than any moralist will want it to be".

[17] Time criticized its "brutal, bloated car-chase sequence pilfered from Friedkin's nifty The French Connection", and called it "a fetid movie hybrid: Miami Vile".

According to Friedkin, the main reason he chose Wang Chung to compose the soundtrack was because the band "stands out from the rest of contemporary music ... What they finally recorded has not only enhanced the film, it has given it a deeper, more powerful dimension".

The album's title song, "To Live and Die in L.A.", (with a music video also directed by Friedkin), made it on the Billboard Hot 100 where it peaked at #41 in the United States.

The DVD contains a new restored wide-screen transfer, an audio commentary featuring director Friedkin where he relates stories about the making of the movie, a half-hour documentary featuring the main characters, a deleted scene showing a distraught Vukovich bothering his soon-to-be ex-wife at her apartment, and the alternate ending Friedkin refused to use, in which the two Secret Service partners survive but are transferred to Alaska while their supervisor Bateman is promoted and takes credit for stopping Masters.