Angel Heart

Rating:
Summary: jaw was dropped almost the whole time I watched this
Review: can only put words into this movie
because this is what I said in my head after seeing this movie
and am glad I saw it on dvd
glad I bought it on dvd too

it's:
shocking
terrifying
strange
sick
twisted
freaky
interesting
abnormal
poweful
moving

I say the same to this one as I did John Carpenter's The Fog
because seriously it's that great of a movie
it takes a while to understand
but it's great

Rating:
Summary: Dark atmospheric thriller
Review: Mickey Rouke stars as Private Eye Harry Angel who is given a job by the mysterious Louis Cypher (Robert de Niro). Unfortunately for Harry the people he is investigating for the job have a habit of being found dead after he has talked to them. Naturally this puts Harry in the frame for murder. His increasingly desperate search for answers, alongside the gloomy, rainy, Louisiana sets make for a tense viewing.
Alan Parker has produced a film that is part thriller, part occult-horror, but always gripping. Recommended.


Rating:
Summary: Very interesting ideas not quite successfuly realized
Review: Harry Angel is a small time New York gumshoe. He's summoned to a rather creepy church in Harlem where he is introduced to a new client the mysterious and wealthy Louis Cyphre. Cyphre wants him to find a certain Jonny Favorite, one time singer, one time WW2 soldier, invalided out of combat and last heard of in some sanitorium upstate. Apparently there is a matter of a contract still to be honoured. So off goes Harry to seek out Favorite's old doctors, friends, fellow musicians. And soon after he finds them they tend to get themselves murdered. And everywhere he looks there seems to be all manner of weird religious stuff going on.

This is an interesting film in loads of ways. It starts out presenting itself as a noir-ish detective story but slowly evolves into a supernatural horror movie and quite an interesting one. Interesting and deep themes of memory, personal identity and moral responsibility are suggestively probed. It's well worth seeing. But ultimately it doesn't quite work. What it setting out to do is disturb us deeply, sending us away with a real feeling we have been on a journey to the heart of darkness. And that it doesn't do.

For one thing Niro doesn't really work as Cyphre - no prizes for guessing his real identity behind that thin disguise. Partly it's a matter of trying too hard to be Satanic - all that stuff with the eggs etc. - how much more frightening it would surely be to do Old Nick as a middle-aged businessman of utter stark ordinariness. (Funny thing the way really distinguished actors can come a cropper with the Prince of Darkness - compare AL Pacino's low point in The Devil's Advocate - but certainly `Angel Heart' is better than that nonsense.) Rourke is OK as Angel, Rampling under-used as the swiftly murdered Margaret Krusemark, Lisa Bonet interesting - and at the time somewhat scandalous - as Favorite's daughter.


Rating:
Summary: Has everything I love about movies... and Voodoo!
Review: I saw this movie on pirate when it came out in 87, which would have made me 9 years old...
I had and open mind and a stong stomach, even then.
If you like Faustus style plot, Noir in colour, Sweaty linin suits, Voodoo rituals, New'leans (It's all one word), and Lisa Bonet, then you'll love this. Parker Captures the spirit of N. O. beautifully, with tap dancing, Tram, club and horse racing shots. Then theres Mickey Rourke, the greatist actor that never was. Still stands up to anything 'suposedly scary' in this age.

Rating:
Summary: Dark looking inside human heart
Review: I think one of the best film in the last 20 years.the class of De Niro and style of Rourke are here nothing in regard to the story.The end of the film is so incredible that I still remember my astonished face.

Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric and weirdly wonderful in most parts
Review: Religion, sex and violence are a potent mix and director Parker makes a meal of all these. The bits - and some of them are quite striking - are better than the whole and the film does not quite hold together. Mr Rourke is brilliant in his cream linen suit which suffers considerably by getting thrown down a lot, splashed with blood, kicked, whacked, beaten, and bitten until it clearly needs a serious dry cleaning by a top New York laundry. Mr Rourke, though playing a loser, is also reasonably fit, and funny - when asked by the ravishing Ms Rampling whether he speaks French he replies, with a wry grin " Lady, I'm from Brooklyn" and when questioned by the rather overweight N'Orleans Constabulary who eye his activities suspiciously, he retorts" I'm not up with all this Voodo s...!" He also has some VERY bad dreams. Atmospheric and weirdly wonderful, with surreal urban and rural landscapes making Louisana a really WEIRD place, this a film worth repeated viewings despite its weaknesses.

Rating:
Summary: Best Alan Parker Movie
Review: "Angel Heart" is one of my favorite movies of all times.

Have re-watched it over and over again since 1987 but am still haunted by Parker's first-class story-telling and cinemaphotography; Trevor Jones' wonderful music score (excellent use of theme song, "Girl of My Dreams", in melodious refrain); and superb casting from the leading to supporting cast, showcasing a particularly diabolical de Niro teamed up with Mickey Rourke at his very best - the scene where he smashed his hand into the mirror while uncontrollably shrieking "I know who I am, I know who I am..." in the hour of reckoning was hauntingly memorable.

But kudos and praise must certainly go to top-notch direction/screenplay by Alan Parker. This is the very first time I am rating the movie better than the original fiction, "Falling Angel", by William Hjortsberg. Parker's very own modifications like shifting part of the movie from Harlem to New Orleans for contrast was clever and visually gratifying.

To be nitpicking, the only flaw in the movie was the use of special effects on Lucifer and Epiphany's baby to signify evil when truth was revealed at the final hour. This came across as a tad heavy-handed, especially when the supernatural / demonic influence thread was already so effectively sewn throughout the film sans special effects. Don't get me wrong though - what made this little imperfection stuck out like a sore thumb was just how good 99.99% of the movie was. As shown in the Director's Commentary (yes, they are finally adding "Bonus Materials" to the Zone 1 Director's Cut), Alan Parker equally questioned himself on the addition of "green contact lens" to heighten the visual impact years ago - he was right to have asked himself that question and should probably have stuck to his guns with the "less is more" principle.

All said, despite this little irksome flaw, the movie is as excellent as great movie-making, acting, story-telling and unstoppable visual feast can go. Don't miss it for your life.

Rating:
Summary: A creepy, haunting thriller...four and a half stars.
Review: Mickey Rourke is a small-time private detective hunting for the whereabouts of a missing man on behalf of secretive client played by Robert DeNiro. A trail of gruesome murders and black magic take him from New York to New Orleans, to an alluring voodoo priestess played by Lisa Bonet and a truly shocking end.

Not for children or young teens - the original (uncut) version was edited to avoid an NC-17 rating due to explicit sex scene, and murders are of a brutal nature. However, the uncut version is definitely better than R-rated. Scenes are not gratuitous - this a very dark, creepy tale of evil with enough mystery that you want to watch to the very end to find out just what the hell is going on.

Excellent acting by Mickey Rourke - nobody else had the acting intensity to play this character in my opinion.

Good use of sinister lighting and images to give film a darker, creepier aspect throughout.

Rating:
Summary: Blackhearted, evil, scary as hell
Review: This cult classic continues to creep out old viewers and a new generation with its dark tale of voodoo, revenge and the curse of fate. Is Mickey Rourke mad, reincarnated and cursed to hell, or simply set up to take the fall for murder? Is De Niro the devil himself? Leave the lights on when you watch this one. Ugly and lurid, but still seductively thrilling....like evil itself.