Review of Angel Heart (1987) by Stuart M — 26 Sep 2008

Alan Parker is one of those guys that doesn't try to do the same thing twice (the guy did The Wall for Christ sakes). What he does with Angel Heart is take a well worn formula (the gum shoe detective) and give it a bit of a twist (supernatural voodoo) that gives us a film that keeps us riveted as we follow Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) from Brooklyn to New Orleans to Hell.

Angel is hired by the mysterious Louis Cypher (Robert DeNiro who seems to have transformed into Scorsese on coke) to find a mysterious musician who owes him a debt. The simple plot follows Angel through many places and many corpses until the revelation is uncovered.

Simple. Yet complex. You sit through most of the film thinking it's a basic private dick dick, but it soon becomes more complicated than that. That's why the film works. The script is good, though there are some scenes that seem to need prodding along. Parker's world is dirty, but not dark. He shines the light on the dirt, keeping the film from going to noirish. Rourke and DeNiro are great with DeNiro playing a true Cypher throughout the film.

Overall Angel Heart is another great piece of film making from Alan Parker. The film does have a twist ending before we expected twist endings that is still a bit predictable, but the ride getting there is always half the fun.