Angel Heart (1987)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Angel Heart (1987) – A. Parker

There were only 11 minutes left when I finally looked at my watch and said, “This is starting to fall apart” – which means Alan Parker’s Mickey Rourke-helmed voodoo detective story holds up remarkably well for most of its running length.  He’s a rough-around-the-edges private dick who is hired by the mysterious Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to find a missing crooner who had reneged on “a deal”. (It is not too hard to figure out who Cyphre really is and De Niro seems to revel in the part).  The story begins in New York City in 1955 (great period detail here) and after a few trips to Harlem, Harry Angel (Rourke) finds himself travelling down to New Orleans on the trail of the missing singer Johnny Favorite.  Parker and his team keep things humid with wailing saxophones on the soundtrack and lush over-ripe visuals, a fair few bloody deaths, and a repeated motif of slowly spinning metal fans (it must be hot in Hell).  And then there’s sex – former Cosby Show star Lisa Bonet tore up her contract with that show to appear naked in some steamy scenes (but then her career didn’t take off after this).  Of course, the whole movie is really Mickey Rourke’s and he pulls it off with his doomed (but genial) bum act; we spend the entire film wondering about his identity as Parker drops hint after hint as Angel follows lead after lead (never dwelling long enough to let viewers look for plot holes).  Nevertheless, the final “reveal” is stranger than expected (although Charlotte Rampling’s voodoo death scene could have tipped us off) – part of those 11 minutes where everything rushes to the finish.  But before that, Angel Heart delivers on its moody noir promise with a Satanic twist.