Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Angel Heart (1987)

Director: Alan Parker

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A first-person Faustian detective novel presents quite a problem to the screenwriter, and Parker's alterations to William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel slacken the cunning weave of strands. Private eye Harry Angel (Rourke) is hired by the mysterious and malevolent Louis Cyphre (De Niro) to find a missing crooner who dabbled in the occult; but Angel's leads all wind up dead in a series of ritual murders. The supernatural is rendered in standard props (steam from a New York grating, silent nuns, the ominous motif of the clanking ceiling fan), and the information encoded in Angel's dreams emerges in the standard approved fashion. There isn't much imagination at work, but - damagingly - there is the disastrous quirkiness of a Coney island beach scene for winter sunbathers, while a copulation scene featuring writhing bodies and a ceiling pouring blood overwhelms the final horror of the detective's situation.

Author: BC 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Alan Parker

Producer: Alan Marshall, Elliott Kastner

Cast: Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling, Stocker Fontelieu, Brownie McGhee full cast

Genre(s): Horror

Duration: 113 mins

Related articles


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.