Brilliant and touching

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Angel Heart is a horror mystery film that features Mickey Rourke,Lisa Bonet and legendary actor,Robert De Niro. It was adapted from the novel entitled Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg.Written and directed by Alan Parker,the story was set in the 1950's wherein a Brooklyn private eye who was hired to locate a missing pop singer.As the investigator tries to solve the mystery,it turns out that anyone who has a clue to the mystery has come up dead.As always,the critically acclaimed novel has a better story in the book as compared to the movie.But nevertheless,it was still worth the view considering that the cast involved provided a good performance from Rourke,De Niro and surprisingly Bonet.Added to that,it was twisty, erotic and definitely splendid.Too bad that it is under-appreciated by movie goers. Give it a chance and it would not be surprising that one may find it an unpopular gem.

One of the problems with the story of Faust, the man in the German legend who sold his soul to the Devil, is that we never understood why anyone would make such a foolish bargain in the first place. A few decades of wealth, power, fame, and sex in exchange for an eternity of suffering the fires of Hell? Evil may be fascinating, but stupidity never is, and we quickly lose interest in the fate of anyone dumb enough to do that. The story fares much better when understood in the allegorical sense, of course, but it is always better if a story makes sense literally if it is to have much value figuratively.This movie solves that problem. Johnny Liebling is a crooner who thinks he knows a way to trick Satan. He makes a pact with him, in which Satan gets Johnny's soul in exchange for fame as a singer, under the name Johnny Favourite. Having made the deal and benefited from it, he then performs a ritual that involves cutting the heart out of a soldier and eating it. By so doing, Johnny is able to substitute the soldier's soul for his own, the result being that the soldier's soul will have to suffer the fires of Hell, while Johnny's soul does not. The soldier's name is Harold Angel, suggesting his innocence, of course. As part of the ritual, the soldier's dog tags are sealed up in vase. Only if Johnny himself opens the vase will the ritual be undone. Because Satan wants Johnny's soul and not Angel's, he must trick Johnny into breaking open the vase.When World War II breaks out, Johnny is drafted and subsequently suffers an injury, which causes him to have amnesia. He spends some time in a hospital, but his friends get him out. Not knowing what to do with him, they simply drop him off in a crowd of people on New Year's Eve. As a result of Johnny's confused memory about swapping souls with Harold Angel, he comes to believe that he is Harold Angel, and eventually starts working as a private detective under that name.Ten years after the war, which is when the movie starts, this Harold Angel is hired by Louis Cyphre (Lucifer) to find Johnny Favourite. Angel does not realize it, but he has been hired by the Devil to find himself. We do not realize it either, at this point, and we are encouraged by the movie to like Angel and to identify with him. He seems to be basically a nice guy. As he starts investigating, he begins experiencing disturbing images from the past. Little by little, he begins to suspect the truth. He is horrified at the idea that he might be Johnny Favourite, and having come to like him and identify with him, we are horrified too.In his desperation to assure himself that he is who he thinks he is, he breaks open the vase, and the dog tags of the real Harold Angel fall out. The spell is broken. At this point, Louis Cyphre appears, announcing that Johnny's soul now belongs to him. Finally, recent memories that Johnny had distorted are replaced by accurate ones, and he is forced into the realization that he has murdered several people.Because Johnny thought he had a way to trick the Devil, this story works on a literal plane. And by making us like him as Harold Angel and identify with him, the movie forces us to realize that we too may not be as good as we like to think we are, that we too have something inside us that is evil.But a remark made by Louis Cyphre gives this Faustian story a new twist. Cyphre says that Johnny was doomed the minute he cut that boy's heart out. In other words, all that dabbling in black magic and making a pact with the Devil was just so much hocus-pocus. In itself, it was harmless nonsense, and Johnny would never have gone to Hell for that. It was only when he did something truly evil, when he murdered that soldier, that Johnny was damned. By this remark, Cyphre links the literal understanding of this story with its allegorical one.

This is an Extremely Disturbing Film. Nothing is On Screen to Lighten the Mood, in Fact the Mood is Relentlessly Dark, Dirty, and Disheveled. Mickey Rourke's Harry Angel makes Colombo Look GQ-Neat. He is a Mess in a Mess of a Case that Involves Alternate Identities, Voodoo Occultism, Satan Worship, Murder, and as in Most Private Eye Film Noirs, a Missing Person.This is a Neo-Noir with Supernatural and Horror Elements, Psychological Aberrations and some of the Grittiest Settings this side of a Bourbon Street from Hades. Director Alan Parker's Stylistic Excess is on Full Display in this Gut-Wrenching Horror Film Hybrid with a Bloody Template and Characters Straight Out of the Carnival Side Show.It is not an Easy Film to Watch. There are Many Unsettling Scenes and some Very Creepy Goings On. It Hits all the Right Notes and Delivers one of the Most Underrated Movies of Recent Times. The Terrible Tone was Probably too much for some Patrons and Critics because it just Never Lets Up and gets More Maniacal and Morbid as the Movie moves along.If it is Film-Noir, Horror, and the Supernatural You Seek, Look no where else, this is an Acidic, Atrophying, Amalgamation of Genres that is Bathed in Blood and takes no Prisoners. The Sharp Angles and Cutting Cinema-Graphic Frames are Shadowed in Dread and there is No Escape for the Living or the Dead.

These are some of the best acting performances I've seen from De Niro, Rourke, and Bonet. It is probably De Niro's creepiest role. It's also amazing to see the huge difference 25+ years has made in Rourke's appearance, while how little Bonet has aged.This flick has the ingredients to keep you on the edge of your seat. Aside from the great acting, it is a film noir featuring murder, sex, the occult, two major cities with very different cultures, and a very solid mystery with a twist that I didn't see coming. If you predicted the latter, please let me know in the comments, but precede your post with "SPOILER."While the quality of the video, effects, sound, etc, is not on par with today's technology, which could easily render most movies with such a dark tone sleepy, its aforementioned strengths make this movie a classic and one that you will want to watch more than once…probably not right away, but somewhere down the line, someone will say that they never saw this film, and you will suggest that you both sit down and watch it together. You will probably enjoy watching it the second time around, knowing what to look for.For more reviews and a kickass podcast, check out: www.livemancave.com