Negative Positive
Title: Smog gets in your eyes
Review: Mean streets don't get any more jaded than Friedkin's hot and dusty, baked-on nasty L.A. in the nihilistic 80's. The sun seems to set on the stench only to rise, far too quickly, over an even wearier, more dangerous world. From the cliché start (partner shot hours before retirement, the ensuing vengeance), this film quickly flips into a more thought-provoking story, where the cop (a Secret Service agent) morphs into--or maybe always was--EASILY the most cynical, manipulative, vicious piece of work on film, pitting himself against a suave counterfeiter (Dafoe) who's almost likeable, given his counterpart. All of it's swathed in the red smudge of a dying sun, and twenty years on, sticks out as one of the best caper movies--minus any illusions whatsoever--I can remember.
Is the review positive or negative? 