Set against the blinding neon, concrete expanses, and sun-bleached industrial lots of Southern California, William Friedkin’s gritty neo-noir crime thriller follows Richard Chance (William Petersen), a reckless, adrenaline-addicted U.S. Secret Service agent driven to dangerous extremes after his partner is murdered just days before retirement.
Partnered with a hesitant new recruit (John Pankow), Chance becomes dangerously obsessed with taking down an elusive, artistic counterfeiter named Eric King (Willem Dafoe), crossing ethical and legal lines until he is operating entirely in the gray.
Friedkin orchestrates a relentless, high-octane descent into moral corruption, anchored by blistering kinetic energy, stunning practical action set-pieces, and a pulsing electronic score by Wang Chung. It stands as a hard-edged, uncompromising masterpiece of 1980s cinema that treats law enforcement and criminality as two sides of the same desperate coin.
From the heart-pounding wrong-way freeway chase to the tense, razor-sharp sting operations, this explosive thriller is a must-see on the big screen.
Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
United States (English, Arabic, Spanish) 116 Min
