Angel Heart (1987)

Rating: C+

Dir: Alan Parker
Star: Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling

Blimey. Rarely has a film swung so wildly from the crassly obvious (“Louis Cyphre”…why didn’t they make it “B.L.Zebub” and have done with it?) to the utterly obscurist (most of the rest of the movie). Mickey Rourke stumbles along convincingly as the P.I. trying to find a singer with whom Mr.Cyphre had a deal, only to find murder, evil and Lisa Bonet stalking his every move. So it’s not all bad, then.

Long on atmosphere and short on coherence, it’s a film you need to watch twice in a row to get a grip on – except it relies so much on precise mood, that it could be years before I feel I want to see it again. Unsettling stuff, mixing Christian and voodoo mythologies to discomforting effect, even if most of the time, you don’t have a clue what’s happening or what it all means