Angel Heart

I do not go much for that Parker kind of stuff("Midnight express" ,albeit technically breathtaking was a little racist,"Shoot the moon" was a big bore,and you've got to be into Pink Floyd to appreciate such a work as "the wall")"Angel Heart " is a different matter,because it deals with the horror and fantasy genre.Against all odds,for someone who had never tackled this difficult genre,Parker succeeded magnificently.The screenplay is first-rate,with a strong story,with an ending you'll never guess (and I will not reveal it of course!)Including drugs,voodoo,sabbath ,intense love scenes,featuring a wonderful cast:Rourke,who had never been better (and never would)and a frighteningly deadpan DeNiro cast as Louis Cipher,this movie takes us along in a meandering,labyrinthine investigation in which private detective Rourke will find so dreadful things he won't escape unharmed. The supporting cast is excellent:Charlotte Rampling stays only a few minutes on the screen ,and yet,we remember her and her tea.The same goes for the junkie doctor.I'd tone it for one thing:the elevator scene might have been borrowed from an old French movie,"Huis clos",directed by Jacqueline Audry,from Jean-Paul Sartre's play(1956).

"Angel Heart" is a true standout film among director Alan Parkers' filmography: a seedy, depressing, disturbing, provocative, and mesmerizing mystery with all the creepy imagery one could hope for. It begins on a very ominous note and remains gripping all the way through its serpentine story. Mickey Rourke, in one of his very best performances, stars as Harry Angel, low rent NYC private eye hired by mysterious Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro, who's fantastic) to locate a vanished crooner named Johnny Favourite. His search leads him from NYC to New Orleans, and with the story (based on the novel "Falling Angel" by William Hjortsberg) taking place in the mid-1950s, that merely adds to the overpowering atmosphere. Along the way, the dead bodies start piling up, and Harry finds things just getting more and more gloomy as his search moves inexorably towards its devastating conclusion. I think that a key to this films' success is that it *can* work even for the viewer who knows the major revelations beforehand, or guesses at them early on. It's the gravitas that Parker and his fine cast brings to the proceedings that make it so compulsively watchable. Also appearing are Charlotte Rampling, beautiful as ever, in the role of black magic practitioner Margaret, and the stunning Lisa Bonet, who's memorable in the role of young mother Epiphany. Familiar faces in smaller roles include Pruitt Taylor Vince, as a detective (he acted again for Parker in "Mississippi Burning"), Kathleen Wilhoite, as a nurse, Michael Higgins as a drug-addicted doctor, musician Brownie McGhee as Toots Sweet, and Dann Florek ('Law & Order: SVU') as an attorney. As this story plays out, one just knows that whatever Harry finds out, it won't be pleasant, and the dark tone extends to the memorable sex scene, which is erotic and creepy in equal measure. The music score by Trevor Jones is suitably eerie and there's a serving of blues music that is irresistible, adding to the overall experience. In the end there's a strong message about the nature of living a lie, and the final confrontation between two characters is brilliantly subtle, depending on acting rather than spectacle or much in the way of cheese. This represents a solid effort from all concerned. Eight out of 10.

"Angel Heart" deserves to be considered Alan Parker's masterpiece. The direction is truly amazing, as Parker drives us deeply through a meticulously prepared dark atmosphere, full of allegories and secret hints.

In "Angel Heart", we watch Mickey Rourke in his finest acting hour, who plays Harry Angel, a private investigator hired by the mysterious Louis Cyphre, depicted by the great Robert De Niro. Cyphre assigns Angel the task to find a guy named Johnny Favorite who has disappeared, with whom he has unsettled debts. The task is much harder than it first looks however, as Angel bumps into several murders in the process; and as if that were not enough, the quest makes him realize some very unpleasant truths about himself and Mr. Cyphre.

As noted before, both Rourke and De Niro are excellent in their roles; a high mark goes for the rest of the cast as well, with Lisa Bonnet standing out as charming and apocryphal Epiphany Proudfoot. Yet, the 10/10 mark for this film is definitely credited to Alan Parker's direction: It is his masterpiece.

I was stunned at what this film did to me. An absolutely brilliant display of psychological horror. Alan Parker made the scariest film of the eighties, maybe the scariest film of the second half of the century with this picture. The hell with "Psycho", "Angel Heart" is where it's at if you want horror.

I don't know how Parker hasn't become the Hitchcock of his generation after this film. I know some of his other work - "Evita" and Mississippi Burning" are two films of his that I happen to think are pretty good. But they're nothing like this. What Parker does so well here, what he seems to get better than any other director I've noticed since this film was made, is how atmosphere makes a movie. He has a real sense of place and time that's a key component to making the terror of this movie real.

Aside from Parker's talents, there are three performances without which the movie just wouldn't work.

Robert de Niro gives the second best performance of his career here, right next to "Raging Bull", and even that's pretty close. I'm not even normally a huge fan of de Niro's - I mean, don't get me wrong, he's a legend, but I find most of the time that I'm less impressed with him than most people are. Not here. In this movie, de Niro makes the simple act of eating an egg into a treatise on mortal dread. He should have received the Oscar for this performance, no question about it.

Lisa Bonet - what happened to her? Every couple of years I'll see her in something like this or "High Fidelity", and she's got all this charisma - she really is a superb actress. What she does here is really interesting because you can see that it's very underdone, a lot of subtlety. Which is a strange way to go if you're playing a voodoo priestess. But she's very vulnerable here. I think it's a shame she didn't become the star she could have. I'd love to see more work from her.

Mickey Rourke is another resident of the "Where are they now?" file. I've heard more from him recently though. He's been making a comeback of sorts. He's actually the primary reason I rented this movie, because I saw him in Sean Penn's "The Pledge" and wanted to see more of his stuff. He's the third performance that makes this movie complete, and he's the one who really has the hardest job, who has to strap it to his back and get it across the finish line. His is also the most important job, because he needs to instill the terror in you. It's through his eyes that you witness these bizarre events, and it's his reaction that makes it all the more terrifying.

Again, brilliant. Can't say enough about it. The last thirty seconds or so kind of sucks (those of you who've seen it know what I'm referring to), but I can just turn it off before that. Oddly, it doesn't ruin what's come before.

This is a very sordid film. I usually don't go for that sort of thing, but there are a lot of other good things about this movie that made me add this to my collection.

There is very good cinematography and camera-work in here, made even better by the special edition DVD transfer. I liked the old film-noir type atmosphere in the story, which is an interesting one overall.

There are no really good-guy characters in this film. Mickey Rourke plays the star of the movie: private eye "Harry Angel." He's somewhat of a low-life but so is everyone else. Lisa Bonet looks spectacular and has a steamy sex scene in here. Robert De Niro gets big billing but he doesn't have that many lines in this film.

The ending of this movie has a very unique twist to it, but it's certainly not a satisfying ending. It is one I should go back over after the next viewing and check for credibility. That's all I can say without using spoilers.

Overall, a sleazy but very intriguing story, with great atmosphere, that I enjoy watching every five years or so. Some would call this movie a modern-day "film noir."