Angel Heart
USA
1987. Director: Alan Parker
Cast: Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet, Robert De Niro, Charlotte Rampling
Alan Parker, helmer of many masterful movies,
have never again fully reached the artistic and commercial peak he enjoyed
at the end of the '80s and early '90s with a trio of Mississippi
Burning, The Commitments and this, a for him rare attempt
at the horror genre. The same can be said about Mickey Rourke. He hasn't
done anything at all that can even be compared to his sensational breakthrough
performance here as Harold Angel, the shabbiest private detective ever
to enter celluloid.
Poor Harold is hired by strange mysterious beardo Louis Cyphre (De Niro) to find a young blues singer named Johnny Favorite. Piece of cake, Harold thinks. But as his investigation leads him down to New Orleans he soon finds out that, apart from the fact that all his clue witnesses all end up dead, it also leads to some horrible revelations upon not only Johnny Favorite but himself as well. Based upon the novel "Fallen Angel" by William Hjortsberg, Angel Heart offers a plot that is often more original than coherent perhaps. The film lives instead on its metaphorical imagery and the stunningly atmospheric depiction of New Orleans in the '50s, complete with razor-sharp photography by Michael Seresin, the best music score money can buy (Trevor Jones and Cortney Pine on saxophone) and a Mickey Rourke so good it hurts. A must in any collection. And yet it isn't Alan Parker's best film.
© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.