ANGEL HEART
A film review by Clark Quinn
Copyright 1987 Clark Quinn
Believe what you've heard. Harry Angel has been hired to search for the truth... Pray he doesn't find it.
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Robert DeNiro, Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling Directed by: Alan Parker Produced by: Alan Marshall and Elliott Kastner Executive Producers: Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna Screenplay by: Alan Parker From the novel: "Falling Angel" by William Hjortsberg Director of Photography: Michael Seresin
I saw this movie at a special pre-release screening here at UCSD. Before the movie started, there was a trailer stating something to the effect that the version we were seeing was not a finished product, and that color, editing, etc. (I can't remember the rest) may be adjusted. We saw the film Saturday night, the film is being released on Friday. Sidenote: can they really make major changes in that short a time?
The story is set in 1955, and involves a PI, Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) hired by a mysterious stranger named Louis Cyphre (Robert DeNiro) to find Johnny Favorite, who welshed on a debt he owes Mr. Cyphre. The only information Angel has is that this man is supposed to be in a hospital in upstate New York, unrecovered from a traumatic wartime accident. The plot complicates as Angel tracks his man to New Orleans and encounters voodoo magic, murder, and a surprise ending. Unfortunately, only part-way into the movie I gradually recognized the story as one I had read in a magazine (undoubtedly either culled from the book or expanded into a book at a later date). While I remember feeling that the story was one of the more interesting and eerie that I had read, being privy to the solution of the mystery may have diluted the effect of some of the revelations in the movie. I did try and get an unbiased view of the effect of the pacing by talking to my viewing companion afterward, who was not aware of the story.
For this movie to work, it is important that the questions lead in a tighter and tighter spiral, the tension must mount, the pace quicken. While there can be occasional minor buildups and releases, overall there has to be a heightening sense of mystery and peril. On two of these scores the movie succeeds, and on one I believe it fails. First, the screenplay felt tight; the clues led ominously to the next one, and each one seemed to provide more questions than it answered, right up to the slow realization of the solution. There were a couple of plot holes, but only one truly felt jarring, and, set near the end, it did not detract from the pace. In addition, the cinematography set a tone that properly framed the action. Early on, a mood of foreboding pervades the movie, and the camera succeeds in capturing a seediness in the environs with drab colors and small details. Unfortunately, the pace is uneven. Certain scenes are dragged out for no obvious reason, and several mystery cliches are needlessly added. The worst offense is the seemingly obligatory horror scene that turns out to be a dream. One other time there is a dream sequence that seems unnecessary, but this scene is not so much of a red herring. I hope that if they change the film at all, it is the use of judicious editing to tighten the film and remove or trim the slow spots. In this movie, if you have too much time to think, the film loses. I think this weakness is particularly a shame, since director Alan Parker is taking away from nice work by screenwriter Alan Parker. I do not know what Alan Parker has previously done.
Mickey Rourke does a fine job of making Harry Angel an everyman's PI. Occasionally he seems to fall too far into the nervous school of acting, but his gradual realization of the real story is nicely evoked. Lisa Bonet is striking as the sexy, worldly young voodoo priestess. Robert DeNiro captures the mystery of Louis Cyphre well, but Charlotte Rampling is not given enough leeway to play her part of the fortune-teller debutante girlfriend of the missing man.
There is considerable violence and gore in the movie, perhaps more than necessary. There is also some flesh and sex, but not gratuitously. I especially think the ending twist is highly imaginative. Looking back, I think that a good job was done in translating the feel of the story to the screen. Overall, I would give the movie a high 1 on the Leeper scale of -4 to +4. A better job of editing would give it a solid 2.
-- Clark N. Quinn Institute for Cognitive Science C-015 University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 (619) 534-5996 (UCSD): (619) 457-1274 (Home) {ucbvax,decvax,akgua,dcdwest}!sdcsvax!sdics!clark.uucp OR clark@nprdc.arpa
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