History YMMV / ToLiveAndDieInLA

* MoralEventHorizon: [[spoiler: Chance raping Ruth.]]

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: Probably why Masters burns his paintings and hangs out with strangely-costumed interpretive dancers.
* VillainProtagonist: '''''CHANCE.'''''

** And [[Film/SpidermanTrilogy Norman Osborn]] was messing around with another form of green.

** And [[Film/Spider-ManTrilogy Norman Osborn]] was messing around with another form of green.

** And [[Film/SpiderManTrilogy Norman Osborn]] was messing around with another form of green.

** And [[Film/SpiderMan Norman Osborn]] was messing around with another form of green.

* CompleteMonster: Chance. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Again, all subject to interpretation.]]

** Masters as well. Some see him as a {{Magnificent Bastard}}, a {{Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds}} with NietzcheWannabe tendencies, or just a straight bad guy.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Chance '''is this trope.''' Is he really despondent and vengeful over Hart's death, or is he using it as an excuse? Is he a KnightTemplar, a [[JerkassWoobie sympathetic asshole]], or just [[CompleteMonster evil?]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Critics of the film, particularly at the time, got this impression; there are hardly any characters that aren't driven by their own selfish desires. The only remotely sympathetic person in the whole mess is Vukovich, [[spoiler: but even then, it is implied by the ending that he has basically become just as bad, if not worse, than Chance.]]

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Chance '''is this trope.''' Is he really despondent and vengeful over Hart's death, or is he using it as an excuse? Is he a KnightTemplar, a [[JerkAssWoobie sympathetic asshole]], or just [[CompleteMonster evil?]]

* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: Friedkin is the king of the car chase, and he brings one of the all-time greats, in which a chase begins in the L.A. canals and ends up with Chance and Vukovich going ''the wrong way'' on a freeway. Bonus points for William Petersen doing a good share of the driving himself for good measure.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: To modern audiences, it can seem like a litany of every [[TheEighties '80s]] and [[TheNineties '90s]] cop movie trope/cliche eventually parodied in ''LastActionHero'' and the [=McBain=] movies-within-the-show on ''TheSimpsons'' - from [[{{Retirony}} the cop days from retirement who gets killed on the job]] to the [[HollywoodCalifornia totally tubular LA setting]] to the exact line ([[BeamMeUpScotty ''not'' uttered in]] ''LethalWeapon''), "I'm getting too old for this shit." Except when you look closer, it turns out this movie predates [[TropeCodifier ''Lethal Weapon'']] by two years and would have been well into production around the same time ''MiamiVice'' debuted.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Chance '''is this trope.''' Is he really despondent and vengeful over Hart's death, or is he using it as an excuse? Is he a KnightTemplar, a [[JerkAssWoobie sympathetic asshole]], or just a [[CompleteMonster evil?]]

* AcceptableEthnicTargets: In the very opening: a kefiah-wearing suicide bomber is yelling "death to Israel and America, and all the enemies of Islam!". [[{{Understatement}} It doesn't end well.]]

* HighOctaneNightmareFuel: The deaths of Jimmy Hart and [[spoiler: Chance.]] Arguably the most accurate depictions of a shotgun blast to the head ever caught on film. [[NauseaFuel And it works.]]

* AcceptableEthnicTargets: In the very opening: a kefiah-wearing suicide bomber is yelling "death to Israel and America, and all the enemies of Islam!". [[{{Understatement}} It doesn't end well.]]
* CompleteMonster: Chance. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Possibly.]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Critics of the film, particularly at the time, got this impression, seeing as the characters are all varying degrees of scumbag.

* RetroactiveRecognition: It's [[CSI Gil Grissom]].