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| ANGEL HEART
(director/writer: Alan Parker; screenwriter: from the
novel "Fallen
Angel" by William Hjortsberg; cinematographer:
Michael Seresin;
editor: Gerry
Hambling; music: Trevor Jones; cast: Mickey
Rourke (Harry Angel),
Robert De Niro (Louis Cyphre),
Lisa Bonet (Epiphany Proudfoot),
Charlotte Rampling (Margaret Krusemark),
Stocker Fontelieu (Ethan Krusemark), Brownie McGhee (Toots Sweet), Michael Higgins (Dr. Fowler), Elizabeth Whitcraft (Connie),
Eliott Keener
(Det. Sterne), Pruitt Taylor Vince (Det.
Deimos), Charles
Gordone (Spider Simpson), Dann Florek (Winesap); Runtime: 113;
MPAA Rating: R; producers: Alan Marshall/Elliott Kastner; Lions Gate Films Home
Entertainment; 1987) "Offbeat Faustian voodoo tale about the descent of a sleazy private detective into hell." Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz Alan Parker ("Bugsy Malone"/"Midnight Express"/"Fame") directs and writes this offbeat Faustian voodoo tale about the descent of a sleazy private detective into hell. It's based on the novel "Fallen Angel" by William Hjortsberg. Set in 1955, in NYC, where
the mysterious Louis Cyphre (Robert De
Niro) hires a second-rate Brooklyn divorce specialist
investigator, the private detective Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke), to find a missing
crooner named
Johnny Favorite, who reneged on fulfilling his contract. The disheveled private dick gets paid
handsomely for his efforts that take him on a strange
and dangerous soul-searching journey to a Poughkeepsie
mental hospital, Harlem, Coney Island in the winter,
New Orleans and the Louisiana bayou. The tale comes with a
Satanic cult twist, as Angel traces the pop singer's
disappearance when he was a soldier in 1943 and
hospitalized Poughkeepsie because of traumatic
amnesia. After interviewing those who could lead him
to Johnny, Angel discovers that they are ritually
murdered in a cultish gruesome fashion and the
detective becomes the patsy who is setup as the
killer. The thriller remains
interesting in a creepy way, as the bloody carnage
mounts and the dick keeps getting more entangled in a
black magic scene out of his grasp. But the film dies
in the third act when Angel finds what he's looking
for and the Faustian
contract with the devil story takes over the plot
line, which flattens things out into too ordinary a
telling of a supernatural tale. Michael Higgins plays the
corrupt drug addicted Dr. Fowler, who covers up the
disappearance of the singer for a fat payoff. Dann Florek plays the
respectable lawyer engaged by the devilish Cyphre to
hire Angel, and is clueless about his clients. Brownie McGhee plays Toots
Sweet, the black jazzman guitarist who belongs to a
Satanic cult and is butchered in the vilest of ways. Charlotte Rampling plays
the white New Orleans society woman, Margaret Krusemark, a fortune teller who was
the singer's lover. Stocker Fontelieu plays Margaret's father, who pays
dearly for helping in the disappearance of the singer
by paying off a corrupt doctor to falsify records of
the singer's stay in a hospital. Lisa Bonet plays the
17-year-old New
Orleans residing Epiphany Proudfoot, the occult
priestess single parent daughter of the white singer
and the deceased black occultist--the singer's secret
lover. The pic had its initial X-rating changed to an R-rating after cutting 10 seconds of footage of a sex scene between Rourke and Bonet for its theatrical release, but the cut scene was slipped back in upon its video release. REVIEWED ON 10/5/2011 GRADE: B Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |