4/5 An entertaining movie
  by Andrew F (Seattle, WA)
Filled with action and a memorable lead character, this movie takes you through a stylish tour of a hardened secret service agent and his new partner. This movie is the forefather of movies such as Dark Blue with Kurt Russell and Street Kings - cops willing to do whatever it takes to get the bad guy, but stepping over the line ultimately brings about their downfall. Well, I guess Kenneau Reeves got away with it in Street Kings. This movie captures the tone and atmosphere of 80's LA to perfection, though now 20 years later the action sequences seem staid compared to the hyper-realistic gore of today. Still, a good way to spend 90 minutes.

4/5 To Live and Die in LA
  by David Arcos (New York)
The quality of the DVD was good, I had no complains about that the delivery was fast, in general I'm happy with my purchase. One thing tough, the cover was not the original cover it was badly retouched, the cover picture of William Petersen had a different head attached to the body, weir

3/5 Pretty good, not great
  by D. Burns (Los Gatos, CA United States)
This movie is pretty good, but definitely not the 4.5 stars given by other reviewers. William Dafoe is great as usual. The rest of the actors are pretty average. The story is good enough to keep you interested, although the script is pretty trite at times. It's worth watching.

3/5 VERY VIOLENT, VERY 80's
  by Dr H.Alloy (Australia)
This particularly nasty, nihilistic movie features a bullying, misanthropic and hot headed (along with other 80's cop SOB's, Micheal Douglas in 'Black Rain' and Mickey Rourke in 'Year of the Dragon')William L. Petersen as one of the more unlikable 'heroes' you'll ever see. And he's also certainly the dumbest. He does however, go at it with considerable gusto and energy. It's hard to give a toss about him or any of the other revolting characters in this otherwise exciting cops and robbers thriller. The cast is terrific though, Willem Dafoe is a hideously reptillian bad guy and John Pankow shows just a glimmer of morality as Petersen's conflicted partner. The propulsive Wang Chung soundtrack is good and Billy Friedkin delivers his best work since 'The Exorcist'. Ironically Petersen played another intense, troubled cop in his next movie, 'Manhunter'. He is sensational in the first adaptation of 'Red Dragon'-much better than Edward Norton in the 2002 version.

5/5 Life imitates Art
  by Greenknight01 (Some where in New England)
This movies is from Hollywierd. However, Dispite the improvements in combating counterfeiting the U.S. Secret Service remains very busy today. This movie is full of cowboy cops, beauracrats and criminal crazies. The twists and turns in the film are closer to real-life interagency screw-ups that you could know.(I carried a Federal Tin with GS-1811 status for 13 years.) Stuff like this save maybe the car chase scene really happens and you will never hear the real story... This is a great movie and dispite the seven one star reviews is very close to the real world. Life imitates art. Dispute the portrayal of the Special Agents in this movie the U.S. Secret Service remain one of the most professional law enforcement agencies in the world.