To be a loose cannon in LA

There has been a significant lack of Friedkin in my cinematic diet, so I finally caught up with To Live And Die In LA when it showed up on my Tubi feed recently. And I have to give it to old Billy, I was genuinely surprised how much it dissected the hugely dramatic idea of a loose cannon going on a roaring rampage of revenge, and showed how hollow it was.

Going into the film, I knew the fate of William Petersen's properly unhinged Dick Chance, and how that twisted the genre. But I didn't realise how much of an absolute arsehole he was before that bloody end. Chance is out to avenge his partner's death, but mainly manages to cause monstrous harm. He gets people killed, he fucks things up, all his loved ones think he's cracked, And most of all, he's a failure. His big plan to get vengeance doesn't work, he doesn't even get the satisfaction bringing down the bad guy and it's up to cousin Ira from Mad About You to get the job done.

I've seen literally hundreds of films with similar themes, but few that showed how hollow and awful that path in life can be, and the dead end it takes you down.