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A flawed but compelling tale, one that derives its success despite and perhaps because of the decade it was born into. As Director Friedkin points out in the documentary that's included with the DVD, the movie acknowledges and celebrates the "counterfeit" aspects of our lives but some of the ideas floating around here are so outlandishly amateurish and cornball - like the artist/criminal Eric Masters (Willem Dafoe) who gazes into the painted reflection of his own tormented self before setting fire to it - that it rivals the local high school drama production for sheer profundity.Wang Chung synth-pop and Peckinpah violence lace the film and it will induce Grand-Theft Auto flashbacks when the gaming crowd watches Richard Chance (yes, that's William L. Peterson, our stoic CSI man - 20 years younger and 40 lbs. lighter) stroll into a strip club. There is energy here - the same type of kinetic existentialism from Mann's _Heat_ and this _Miami-Vice_transplantation succeeds (cheese and all) because of the commitment to and abandonment of the genre's repertoire of clichés - the obligatory car chase is here (although it's a good one), and the cops-on-the-edge thing is not unfamiliar. Yes, this is a hackneyed action flick but cinematographer Robby Muller's picturesquely captures the city's essence (forgive me Angelenos). L.A. is the main character of this story and despite the inevitable ending the viewer is left with a warm, nostalgic feeling not only for this great city but for the many times we've drifted through L.A.'s phantom-like streets in countless other movies and in our own imaginations.
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