Angel Heart, 1987.
Directed by Alan Parker.
Starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, and Charlotte Rampling.
SYNOPSIS:
It’s 1955, and New York-based private investigator Harry Angel is hired by the mysterious businessmen Louis Cyphre to track down Johnny Favourite, an elusive lounge singer who owes Cyphre a very large debt. As he investigates, Angel finds himself embroiled in a dark mystery of violence, murder, and mysticism, with the hunt for Favourite leaving many bodies in its wake.
With its dodgy dames, greasy gumshoes, dimly lit alleys, and jazzy booze soaked mysteries, noir is simply one of the coolest and most fascinating genres ever to have existed.
Noir while fascinating on its own is, in my view, at its most engaging and interesting when writers and directors try to mix it with other genres. An easy example to point to would be Ridley Scott’s melding of noir with science fiction to create the iconic Blade Runner, a film often dubbed as tech noir.
Away from science fiction noir (a topic we’ll save for another article) one genre cocktail that is ripe with possibilities is the mixture of the darkness inherent in the noir genre with the darkness inherent in the horror genre.
To see the results of this deliciously dark blending, look no further than Alan Parker’s masterful hard-boiled horror Angel Heart.
Despite having a title that would be better suited to some kind of awful Christian romance film that would have you praying to God to make it stop (think Old Fashioned, now that’s a scary film), don’t let it put you off. Far from what its title suggests, Angel Heart is possibly one of the darkest films that I’ve reviewed for this series, weaving a tale of voodoo, murder, ritual sacrifice and the occult. And it’s brilliant.
Mickey Rourke, in arguably his greatest performance, takes on the lead role of Harry Angel, an almost stereotypical embodiment of the classic noir private eye character. Rourke with his natural charisma and easy-going nature excels at making Angel a likeable and sympathetic protagonist, one who is never short of wisecracks and charm to the various seedy figures he interrogates while hunting his quarry.
I especially like the cheeky way he answers certain questions, such as “Are you an atheist?” or “do you speak French?” often simply replying with “I’m from Brooklyn”.
Robert De Niro gives a brilliantly understated performance in what is essentially an extended cameo as the mysterious Louis Cyphre, with the legendary actor managing to create an intriguing and ominous character whose unsettling screen presences keeps you hanging on his every unnerving word. The name is a bit on the nose though.
I adore the scene in which De Niro and Rourke meet in a cafe, with the former ruminating on the way certain cultures view the egg. Notice the deliberate and blatant display of gusto in which De Niro eats an egg. It’s a nice little touch that offers a rather clever (if slightly obvious) clue as to Cyphre’s true interest in finding Johnny Favourite, with this simple act carrying a quietly frightening edge to it.
Lisa Bonet also gives a fine turn as the curiously named (which in this film is saying something) Epiphany Proudfoot, a New Orleans woman who had an affair with the missing Favourite and could hold the key to his whereabouts.
The weirdest part of Bonet’s performance occurred off-screen, with many being outraged that the actress, then best known for her role in the family-friendly sitcom The Cosby Show, would take on a such a challenging and adult role, one that happened to have a graphic blood-soaked sex scene.
None other than Bill Cosby himself would condemn the film and Bonet’s appearance in it, denouncing Angel Heart as “a movie made by white America that cast a black girl, gave her voodoo things to do and have sex”. Isn’t it funny how time changes your views on things?
Like noir films and pulp novels of the past, Angel Heart’s story is a bleak and dark one, a story filled with unsavory characters, seedy bars, graphic violence and death on every corner. And I do mean it when I say this film is dark, featuring several grisly murders that, while not shown, are discussed in enough graphic detail to certainly make you wince. The overall dark visual tone and Trevor Jones spooky score excel at allowing the viewer to become enveloped by this atmosphere, taking the viewer down some very dark alleys in the process.
Perhaps no character best emphasises the dark and violent feeling of the film better than the elusive Johnny Favourite himself, with his numerous grisly deeds (including cannibalism) and violent nature creating the image of a man who is simply evil incarnate, with his dark presence managing to haunt every frame. An impressive feat for a character who for almost the entirety of the films two-hour runtime is never ever seen or heard, only referred to with frightened whispers and terrified glances over the shoulder.
Then you come to the big twist. It’s the kind of brilliant twist that you when it hits you on your first viewing is utterly bewildering, leaving you puzzled as to how you didn’t see it coming, leaving your leaving you constantly on the look out for the various hints and winks on your second viewing. It’s quite possibly one of the greatest and most underrated twists in all of horror cinema and no, I’m not telling you what it is.
With Mickey Rourke in one of his best performances, a dark tone with an atmosphere that drips malice and death from every frame and a twist ending that demands multiple viewings to catch the clues, Angel Heart the perfect film for those looking for genre blending of the darkest kind. A seedy masterpiece that I highly recommend.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Graeme Robertson
