Review of Angel-A (2005) by Rachel J — 11 Aug 2008

Angel-A is a dear, surprising film -- It's a strange feature with moods that aren't always immediately clear, but reward the patient with a little oddity and magic blended together for maximum delight.

Andrew (Jamel Debbouze) jumps off the same bridge twice in Angel-A, and the film is propelled, in large part, by what leads him not just once, but twice, to make the plunge. The first time he throws his legs over the rail and leans over to gaze at the water, it's an act of desperation -- the only course of action the tense, timid and terrified Andrew sees as a viable option. And over the course of a long, dark night, we see why that's the case: From street to street, and from London club to club, he's grabbed by the collar and told to pay up; informed that he has one more day to come up with the money he owes or there'll be trouble. One particularly nasty gangster holds Andrew upside down atop the Eiffel Tower. He'll pay, Andrew screams out, but he just can't think under these conditions; give him an extra day, and he'll figure out a way to come up with the cash. Moments later we see his grand idea: Walking into a police station and pleading with them to lock him up for a few days, until the whole thing blows over. When the officer behind the desk bursts into laughter, Andrew pulls up his collar, shuffles back into the streets and finds his way to the previously mentioned bridge, ready to cash it in. But in that moment of truth, he looks to his left and spots a woman about to jump -- a tall, beautiful blonde who seems inconsolable. Almost instantly, Andrew quickly becomes more concerned about her than his own misery, and when she jumps, he jumps to save her. Together they fall, and as both surface, she announces that she's going to devote her life to helping him out -- by helping him raise the cash to pay off his bookies and helping to boost his self esteem.

It isn't until much later, as she puffs cigarettes with Andrew in a diner, that she shares the truth with him: She's an angel, sent down from heaven to help him out since, deep down, he's a good and decent man. For the first time, the frowning and fretting Andrew bursts into chuckles. But those laughs turn to tears as this woman, who says her name is Angela (Rie Rasmussen) makes her ashtray levitate.

As is the case with so many movies involving angels, Angel-A is primarily concerned with matters of the soul, of Andrew trying to right the many wrongs he's committed and to set out to lead a better life. What's at once refreshing and disorienting about the way French director Luc Besson ("The Fifth Element") -- one of the most interesting international visionaries at work today -- handles the story is his attempt to de-romanticize one of the most idealistic and sublime formulas around.

Angela is not your everyday angel but, as played by the whimsical Rasmussen, is a snide, even sarcastic girlfriend of sorts, unafraid to beat up Andrew's enemies for him, all the while trying to teach him how to love himself first and foremost. She seems willing to do anything to help the guy, in one shocking sequence raising $50,000 by charging 50 men at a dance club $1,000 each for a sexual rendezvous in the bathroom.

Bathing the film in black-and-white, and by turning our attention to the all-out pathetic Andrew, who is a dumpy, physically disabled troublemaker; a loser in life who's starting to believe his own press. While on the other hand Angela is a towering blonde firecracker with a sexuality that melts glass. The duo makes for one hilariously uneven couple, but their acting couldn't be more finely matched and ready to engage. Besson seems at once to be paying homage to sweeter stories from cinema's past, while tearing up the old formula in favor of a new brand of fallen hero, a new type of angel and a whole new series of ups and downs that keep re-ordering the film's priorities.

Angel-A is a funny, stylish fantasy; a movie that never stops reinventing itself.