Angel Heart (Parker, 1987): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm
Chicago Reader review:Mickey Rourke as a private investigator hired by a mysterious client (Robert De Niro) to track down a missing person. Deliberate mystification in all this, with imponderable flashbacks and assorted voodoo distractions, though director Alan Parker (Midnight Express) drops so many ironic cues along the way that when the surprise ending finally comes, it isn’t. Parker directs everything for maximum visual impact but can’t manage to tie the scenes together: there’s no pacing, no development, only alternating passages of disaffected ramble and hysterical rant. The semiautistic styling may be congenial to his perennial themes (of personal entrapment and the self under siege), but for all the supernatural bloodletting and explosions of technique, the film remains distant and closed (1987).
Pat Graham
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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