Angel Heart

(1987)

Directed by

Alan Parker

Review by Todd Plucknett

Alan Parker’s film Angel Heart is a thought-provoking, sometimes brilliant, often over-the-top, yet always fun film that will stay in the mind of the audience for quite some time. It is a blistering and daring film that brings out the best in almost everyone involved. While it isn’t Parker’s best film, it is one of his stronger efforts.

The story is based on the novel by William Hjortsberg, adapted by Parker himself. It is about a down-and-out Brooklyn private investigator named Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke). He is contacted by Louis Cyphre (Oscar-winner Robert De Niro), who hires him to find Johnny Favorite, a former big band singer who he needs to settle a score with. The problem is that Favorite does not want to be found. Angel finds out that there was falsification in the medical records of the severely-injured and traumatized WWII veteran he was looking for. Angel confronted the doctor who covered it up, and later that night, the man was killed in a bizarre, brutal fashion. This scares Angel, so he tells Cyphre that he cannot continue, because he is now a murder suspect. Cyphre negotiates, and Angel eventually accepts the $5000 fee from Cyphre to continue the investigation in Louisiana. As Angel digs deeper into the life of Johnny Favorite, the more he gets faced with the ritualistic worlds of voodoo and Satanism. He becomes more and more concerned with his own safety, mainly because everyone who he comes in contact with who new Favorite was killed in a grisly, horrid manner. Angel begins having horrible nightmares, yet he is determined to solve this case that has consumed him so thoroughly for the past several days. What develops is an absolutely shocking and disturbing conclusion that is impossible to let go of.

What makes the film so great is the fact that it is completely uncompromising in its visual images. Alan Parker does a credible job directing the piece. I have never been a big fan of his, though. He always seemed to me as a second-rate Oliver Stone. Oddly enough, they worked together on their first major film, Midnight Express. Following this collaboration, they developed similar careers. Stone started making appealing, blunt, over-the-top films, while Parker made films that were on the verge of being great, like Mississippi Burning, but eventually sunk in their pretentiousness. Also, in his complete failure The Life of David Gale, all of those shocking images fail to make any impact and only make the audience uncomfortable and leave them with a feeling of extreme discontent. In the case of Angel Heart, however, the story required a certain amount of visual frankness and disturbing content to create its overall effect. With all that potential and talent with the camera, he was able to make a dark, mysterious, and haunting little film.

The performances in the film are superb. It all begins with Mickey Rourke. His performance is one of his finest, and it just reiterates that he was the man in the ‘80s. With performances like this and Diner, it is scary to think where he would have been today if he hadn’t thrown everything away in the following decade. With his physicality and emotional intensity on screen, it suggests one person: Brando. His performance here is superb in its grittiness and honesty. He reminded me quite a bit of Bruce Willis actually, in his Pulp Fiction/12 Monkeys days. Robert De Niro was awesome in his ridiculous role. He was able to steal a couple scenes with his limited screen time. The real surprise of the film, however, is Lisa Bonet. She gives one of the sexiest performances ever, and she played her crucial part with incredible subtlety and brilliance. I wish that she had made more films.

What gives the film its cult status is its final act. There are so many shocking and mind-blowing occurrences that it will take a few hours to get all the facts straight. I was trying to come up with a hole in the plot, because there was no way in my mind that it could have all fit together so perfectly without a snag somewhere. Every time I would come up with something, there was a detail to confirm its legitimacy. That is the mark of a truly great screenplay.

Now, as much as I liked this film, there are still some flaws. There were some real editing problems, and some of the images were so exaggerated that it somewhat took away from their impact. The Special Edition DVD had some interesting features on it, though. There is one riveting interview with Rourke, where he talks about his career and the people he worked with who inspired him the most. He revealed that he was going to quit acting until Parker contacted him for this film. We can all be glad for him changing his mind. Together, they made a wonderfully thrilling and unforgettable mystery that is close to being a masterpiece for Parker. He is still one of the more interesting filmmakers out there, though he hasn’t made a film in a while. It always is a problem when a filmmaker peaks very early in their career, which is exactly what Parker did with Midnight Express. If only he had maintained that same level of brutality and intelligence in his later films, then he could have been a remarkable director. Is Angel Heart a great film? Not necessarily. I am not exactly sure what it is trying to say, if anything at all. Either way, it is still insane, scorching entertainment.

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