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Drew does Angel Heart
Posted by Drew
“However cleverly you sneak up on a mirror, your reflection always looks you straight in the eye.”
The Scoop: 1987 R, directed by Alan Parker, starring Mickey Rourke, Robert DeNiro and Lisa Bonet
Tagline: Harry Angel has been hired to search for the truth… pray he doesn’t find it.
Summary Capsule: If we were to combine Noir Week and Stephen King Week, this is the film we’d review.
Drew’s Rating: Don’t tell your parents, but this movie just took your mind’s virginity. And it wasn’t gentle.
Drew’s Review: I’m not usually one for buying into signs. It’s not that I don’t have a spiritual side, I just tend to think a lot of the coincidences we encounter in life are just that- coincidences. But when, within the course of a week, I encountered references to a movie I’d never heard of from two completely different sources, I figured maybe, just maybe, the universe was trying to nudge me in the direction of my next review. I’m glad I listened.
It’s 1955 and Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is a dick — that’s private detective to you — who’s just been retained by a mysterious gentleman named Louis Cyphre (Robert DeNiro). It seems Johnny Favorite, a popular crooner from the ’40s, owed an unspecified debt to Cyphre only to disappear in the wake of World War II. Naturally Cyphre would like him found if he’s still alive, so Harry is on the case, one that will take him from the grimy streets of Brooklyn to the haunting tapestry that is New Orleans. The main problem along the way is that every lead Harry meets with seems to turn up dead immediately after. His only chance to clear his name is to find Favorite, who all signs point toward having been a real S.O.B., and hope that doing so brings some answers. And it just might at that, but will they be answers Harry wants to hear?
Rather than dancing around the issue, let’s confront it head on: Angel Heart has a unique ending, one that I’m going to take pains not to spoil. Naturally you can head right over to Wikipedia to check it out, but I’d advise against it… this is the type of reveal that carries more weight when experienced firsthand. That said, the rest of the movie does a nice job of building up to it, creating a slowly mounting sense of dread until everything erupts in the denouement. For all his occasional wisecracks, Rourke does well in making Harry Angel seem like a pretty bleak guy at his core, never fully connecting to the people with whom he interacts. He’s entertaining without being overwhelmingly likable, a noir trademark. Speaking of which, the character is actually shown to be a pretty good detective, whether it’s wiping down everything he touched after finding a dead source (simple, but so often overlooked), or deducing that a transfer order was doctored because ballpoint pens didn’t exist in 1943.
Of course, for all his underrated talent, Rourke can’t carry the movie alone, and he’s fortunate that DeNiro is on board to play off of. Ol’ Bobby D (he likes when I call him that) takes a character who could easily be viewed as over the top and instills him with an air of subtle but constant menace. The fingernails are a bit much, but otherwise Cyphre just seems like a soft-spoken man whom it’s clear you Do Not Want To Mess With. As for Epiphany Proudfoot… well, it helps the character that Lisa Bonet always seems a bit wispy to me. I don’t mean physically, but even when she’s talking, she gives off this slightly disengaged vibe like she’s really thinking about some dream she had last night, y’know? As such, it’s an inspired casting choice for Epiphany, and I guess my only criticism is that I don’t really feel the chemistry between her and Harry.
At least, not until that one infamous scene, and I don’t think it’s spoiling much to mention that the sex scene between Harry and Epiphany is not just graphic (read: don’t watch with your mom around), but also freaky as hell. You’ll probably be turned on in the early stages, but if your engine’s still running by the end, I’d consider seeking professional help. It’s also fitting, as Harry’s frantic, um, movements underscore the fact that we’re rapidly approaching the film’s climax, and by this point you’re hopefully as eager for resolution to the case as Harry himself is.
It’s sometimes hard to know what to make of genre-crossing films because they have to be judged by two sets of criteria. Angel Heart is more noir than horror in that we see the aftermath of deaths rather than watching them occur in front of us. Still, there is definite psychological terror building throughout and (spoiler!) even a little supernatural flavor before all’s said and done. In that vein, I’m sad to report that limited 1980’s technology lends just a whiff of cheesiness to an otherwise truly satisfying conclusion. Nonetheless, it’s a movie that will leave you feeling entertained, if more than a bit disturbed. Assuming you’re a fan of detective fiction and/or horror, you owe it to yourself to find out what happened to Johnny Favorite.
That seems like a recipe for splinters in some uncomfortable places.
Didja Notice?
- Angel Heart is based on the novel “Falling Angel” by William Hjortsberg.
- Harry can be quite the charmer when he wants to be.
- Louis Cyphre is, ah, not exactly subtle in advertising himself.
- What kind of cop brings a child into a room where his mother is lying dead?
Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?
- Yes – the credits are interspersed with brief scenes showing the final fate of Johnny Favorite.
Intermission!
- Lisa Bonet received negative backlash for her portrayal of Epiphany Proudfoot, particularly her graphic sex scene, as at the time she was a cast member on the family-friendly The Cosby Show. That… is not a family-friendly love scene, is all I’ll say. In fact, they had to trim some of it to get an “R” rating.
Groovy Quotes
- Harry: I gotta find Johnny Goldentonsils, we don’t know where he is, he probably doesn’t know who he is. I got a geriatric band leader at a home in Harlem, I got a guitar player called Toots Sweet. What else I got?
Connie: A hard-on.
Harry: Listen, what do you do around here in the summertime?
Izzy: I bite the heads off of rats.
Harry: What do you do in the winter?
Izzy: Same.
Epiphany: Hey, what are you after him for? Johnny Favorite?
Harry: I’m not really after him. I’m just being paid to find out where he is.
Epiphany: He could be six feet under.
Harry: Then I’ll have to buy a shovel.
Toots: I remember Spider. He used to play them drums like two jackrabbits [screwin'].
Harry: How did he die?
Cop: Technically? Asphyxiation by his own genitalia.
Harry: But not so technically?
Cop: Somebody cut his [manhood] off, stuffed it in his mouth and choked him to death.
Cyphre: They say there’s just enough religion in the world to make men hate one another, but not enough to make them love.
Cyphre: Are you an atheist?
Harry: Yes, I am. I’m from Brooklyn.
Cyphre: Alas. How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise.
Cyphre: However cleverly you sneak up on a mirror, your reflection always looks you straight in the eye.
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