Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Angel-A (2005)
Director: Luc Besson
Movie review
From Time Out Chicago
What if the guardian angel in It’s a Wonderful Life had been a Nordic supermodel and George Bailey had been a small-time hustler deeply in debt to a variety of Parisian lowlifes? That’s the basic setup of Angel-A. André (Debbouze) is ready to jump off one of those fabled bridges across the Seine, but he spies a woman (Rasmussen) a few yards away with the same idea. She plunges in, and he leaps in and saves her. She introduces herself as Angela (get it?) and quizzes André about why he wants to throw his life away. But instead of running the old what-if-you’d-never-been-born racket on André, she offers to help him solve his problems.Her solutions are pretty unorthodox for an angel; while André is bargaining with a man to whom he is deeply in debt, Angela sits with her legs provocatively spread and proposes conducting the rest of the negotiation in private, if you catch our drift. Her life lessons for André are frankly pretty confusing, but the upshot seems to be that he must learn to love himself.
Besson and cinematographer Thierry Arbogast (with whom Besson frequently works) make Paris look gorgeous in glowing black and white, and cinephiles with a fondness for the City of Light will be in hog heaven. It’s lovely to look at, but it isn’t quite as profound as Besson seems to believe.
Author: Hank Sartin
Time Out Chicago Issue 119: June 7–13, 2007
Cast & crew
Director: Luc Besson
Producer: Luc Besson
Cast: Jamel Debbouze, Rie Rasmussen, Gilbert Melki, Serge Riaboukine full cast
Rated: R
Duration: 90 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now