Rating: 
Summary: Alan Parker's dark genius
Review: A Faustian spin through post-war New York and Louisiana, 'Angel Heart' tells a very old story from a surprisingly original and wonderfully chilling angle. The plot, focusing on an increasingly violent missing person's case, is reasonably simple, but the backstory which triggers it is remarkably complex. When you reassemble the pieces at the end it does make sense, but only just. De Niro is superb as Louis Cyphre, the 'businessman' with some collateral to collect, infusing the role with just the right balance of sardonic humour and demonic threat. Mickey Rourke gives what will probably always be his best performance as Harry Angel, a shell-shocked war veteran and disheveled P.I. The supporting cast is excellent, especially Charlotte Rampling as an occultist, and Lisa Bonet as a teen voodoo witch. But the real star here is writer/director Alan Parker. He has an extraordinary talent for the simple but powerfully unsettling image: a slow zoom on the exterior wall of a New York hotel; a New Year's Eve crowd in Times Square; a descending elevator; a sweeping stair; the rotating blades of a fan. These images are simple, cold, yet positively brimming with hellish menace. Trevor Jones's music is the perfect accompaniment, its saxophones careening wildly over menacing rhythms and the ubiquitous throb of a beating heart. It's a thoroughly disturbing marriage which will have fear closing around you with the same grim certainty as the protagonist's fate.
Rating: 
Summary: A slow film worth the wait!
Review: I tried to watch this film for the first time but had to turn it off after an hour due to boredom. Then I watched the last half and the ending made it worth the wait.This film is a catalyst for M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense. Just as the exhiliration of comprehension crashes over you as all the subtleties of the movie float to the surface, so is the need to see the movie again to feel as though you appreciate all the fabulous foreshadowing that facilitates the plot. Angel Heart is a fabulous movie and Robert DeNiro is deliciously creepy. The fingernails were a bit unnecessary, I think, as the watcher would deem them odd, until the last 3 minutes of the film. Altough I spent the whole movie wishing Mickey Rourke would take a shower and a shave, he was flawless in his portrayal of the tormented private eye who couldn't catch a break. I especially loved the fact that protagonist and antagonist were combined into one character. There's nothing more frustrating than pitying the really really bad guy! Lisa Bonet was very good and I'm sorry that she did not pursue a film career. She would have offered much to the industry.
Rating:
Summary: All time underrated
Review: Superlative performances by Mickey Rourke, Robert DeNiro and Lisa Bonet in a downright dark story make this one creepy, albeit excellent movie. The story line goes, Mickey Rourke's character is a PI hired to find a person who disappeared 14 years ago. The story twists and turns and mixes in southern voodoo until it reaches a show-stopping climax. A little slow at times, which can make the complex plot tough to follow, but everything comes together in the end. Clearly one of the all time great underrated films.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Unconventional Detective Tale
Review: One of the greatest aspects about this film (to me) is that it is not quite a horror film, not quite a straight supernatural thriller and not totally a gritty detective movie either. It has elements of all three but does not stay consistently with the theme of any. The critics who called it "provocative and original" were correct because if nothing else, _Angel Heart_ is indeed those two things. On the surface, the plot seems simple. A private investigator named Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is hired by Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to find a big band singer from the 1940s, Johnny Favorite. Angel is hesitant at first but he accepts the job because it pays well. From the beginning of the investigation, Angel learns that Favorite must have had plenty of secrets to hide. I don't want to give too much of the plot away so if you want to watch the film without knowing much about its twists and turns, don't read on. Anyhow, it seems that Favorite had powerful friends who took him out of the hospital he was staying at after the war and he disappeared. Because he had been badly injured, his face was still in bandages when he left so it was possible that Johnny didn't even look like Johnny anymore. As Angel probes deeper and deeper, dead bodies begin to pile up and Angel gets involved with Epiphany (Lisa Bonet), a voodoo priestess who could well be underhandedly included in a diabolical scheme with Favorite. In the film, Angel leaves New York for New Orleans to learn more about the occult practices Favorite was part of. This differs from the novel in which the setting stays in New York throughout. By the last twenty minutes of the film, the audience will discover the dark truth about Johnny Favorite at the same time (or maybe before if you've been paying attention) Angel does. Mickey Rourke does an excellent job of portraying Harry Angel and Robert De Niro, though not an obvious choice for bringing to life the book's version of Louis Cyphre, is fantastic. De Niro plays Cyphre with such skill that even if you find the supernatural premise to be hokey or contrived, you will feel intimidated by his commanding prowess. As one reviewer already mentioned, the cinematography is excellent. The setting, lighting, and lack of bright, vibrant colors give the film a dark, noir feeling that it retains all the way through. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys trying to crack how movies will end, anyone who likes detective stories and anyone with an interest in the supernatural.
Rating: 
Summary: The genius of Mickey Rourke...
Review: is fully evident in this late 80s Alan Parker film, an overlooked classic if there ever was one. In my opinion, no one then or now could do the job portraying detective Harry Angel that Rourke did. He captures every nuance of the character perfectly, running the gamut from emotional wreckage to physical haggardness. How someone so gifted could let said gift get away from him the way Rourke did is a mystery almost as compelling as the one serving as the subject of this film. The basic storyline is deceptively simple; Harry Angel is a down and out post WWII New York detective hired by a shadowy figure to find a missing singer, one Johnny Favorite. That search leads him from New York City to the bowels of the Louisiana bayou, and it's that setting that gives the film so much of its powerful atmosphere. Things are not as they seem, and the story becomes stranger the further along it goes... Alan Parker did a fantastic job of using muted colors to convey the sense that this story is not taking place in our time, but rather one of a recently faded past. Visually, the film transports you to that place and moment in a way that few "period pieces" manage to accomplish. Add in his notorious attention to detail, and you have little doubt that you are seeing the deep south of Louisiana as it was in the 1950s. The other major performances (Robert De Niro, Charlotte Rampling, Lisa Bonet, Brownie McGhee) are wonderful in their own right, but IMO, this is Rourke's show. A modern classic!
Rating:
Summary: DVD Release breathes new life into Excellent Thriller
Review: Despite the fact that this movie virtually tiptoed in and out of the box office limelight when it was released, it is still a very watchable, and often scary detective style thriller. What seems a simple missing person case brings Mickey Rourke to steamy (and often seamy) New Orleans and Harlem in the fifties. Working for a curiously menacing but well spoken client called Loius Cyphre, played superbly by Robert De Niro, our gumshoe must dig and delve into the past and try and retrace the steps of the disappearance. Cleverly twisted, and at times a little hard to follow, it transpires that the aforementioned Mr Cyphre (Lucifer in case you missed it) is actually on a harvest of souls that have been previously owed. The closer O' Rourke gets to the truth, the more horrifying it becomes, for him and everyone around him, in a very suspenseful, and often quite disturbing way. A young Lisa Bonet appeared in a fairly graphic, explicit and questionable sex scene in the original movie, which brought much controversy upon it, but has been restored in the unrated version. Despite the unlikely 80's designer stubble sported throughout by our hero, being fashionable in even the shadiest areas of town in the 50's, O'Rourke plays his part extremely well, often bemused, and superbly portarying genuine fear at the revelations he uncovers. Sure to thrill any audience today who likes the supernatural/thriller/mystery drama, it's still highly watchable. Perhaps enjoy is the wrong word here, but worth a visit!
Rating:
Summary: one of the most underated
Review: I love horror movies.I really do. every kind from extreme splatter to the mildest chills. Angel Heart is easily one of the spookiest,and very underated. Mickey Rourke is awesome and gives his best ever performance,its fab from start to finish,beautiful soundtrack,and DeNiro as the bad guy,it has everything,a noir feel that slowly changes into satanic horror......PLUS! Lisa gets very naked....... buy it now!
Rating:
Summary: steamy n'awlins
Review: this movie is so accurate in its depiction of the humidity of Louzana, your DVD may drip out of the player without you touching an "open" button! truly mickey rourke's best role as a tortured man, an angry lover, and bewildered to the end as he is drawn into the strange world of the religion,(voodoo)culture, and the lust of a beautiful woman he cannot/will not escape from. Robert DeNiro is verrry spooky and if you don't know the story, DON'T ask anyone and be surprised and pleasantly, tingly shocked at the ending!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best ever
Review: I would rate this movie as one of the best supernatural thrillers ever. Alan Parker conjures up an atmosphere you can feel. The wetness and humidity of New Orleans, the dark hallways, the sound of a heartbeat. Robert DeNiro's eyes in the last scene are forever planted in my head.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks Heart and Everything Else
Review: During most of the time of this supernatural thriller, Mickey Rourke`s character is looking for a missing person and in order to achieve her he must enter some dangerous and risky places. Director Alan Parker manages to create a tense mood and atmosphere in some moments, but the result is still tedious and dull, whose only non-boring parts are the long and unecessary sex scene and the obvious, poorly conceived and ridiculous ending.
"Angel Heart" is a flat, uninteresting movie that lacks in substance, entertainment, tension and credibility. A snoozer.
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