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| Robert De Niro in ominous, omnipresent black surrounds Mickey Rourke's desperate protagonist on this dark poster for Alan Parker's Angel Heart |
In 1955's New York, detective Angel takes an assignment from a man with long nails called Louis Cypher: He is to track down a lost crooner by the name Johnny Favorite. It leads Angel to New Orleans, where corpses start to get in the way in a case that entails a sombre relation to black magic.
Angel Heart is written and directed by great English filmmaker Alan Parker (Bugsy Malone (1976)), adapting William Hjortsberg's (Gray Matters (1971)) novel Falling Angel (1978). It combines an erotic detective thriller with mystery and religious elements.
The depiction of the 1950s milieu in New York and New Orleans is brimming with atmosphere, - especially the film's dirty South half.
Unfortunately, Parker's script doesn't keep up with the pleasures of the film's visual side: The copious yet sudden ending doesn't get the necessary clout to really stick. The film remains interesting but not truly successful. Mickey Rourke (The Crawl (2001)) is auspicious in another colorful detective movie, (though Michael Cimino's great Year of the Dragon (1985) is better), SPOILER and Robert De Niro (Ronin (1998)) is memorable as the devil in disguise.
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Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 18 mil. $
Box office: 17.1 mil. $ (North America only)
= Some uncertainty - but almost certainly a big flop (returned 0.95 times its cost domestically)
[Angel Heart was released 6 March (USA) and runs 113 minutes. Hjortsberg adapted his novel and wanted it adapted after its publication, but studios were wary of the dark property, until Parker became involved and secured financing through indie company Carolco International. Bill Cosby helped cast Lisa Bonet (Biker Boyz (2003)), star of his The Cosby Show (1984-91), - and panned the film as racist when it was released. Shooting took place in New Jersey, New York and in Louisiana, including New Orleans, from March - July 1986. The MPAA initially gave the film an X-rating, forcing Parker to edit out ten seconds of Rourke's buttocks from a sex scene to receive the R-rating. The film opened #4, behind fellow new release Lethal Weapon and holdover hits A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Platoon, to a 3.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America. The foreign grosses are regrettably unreported online: A likely final gross of 20-25 mil. $ would put the film in the big flop category. Roger Ebert gave it a 3½/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. Parker returned with Mississippi Burning (1988). Rourke returned in A Prayer for the Dying (1987); De Niro in The Untouchables (1987). Angel Heart is fresh at 77 % with a 7.16/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Angel Heart?
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