by Tim Gordon
“How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise?”
Louis Cypher, Angel Heart (1987)
Over thirty years ago, I sat down for an experience that transfixed me then and still haunts and resonates with me. The film was a neo-noir psychological horror thriller, Alan Parker’s Angel Heart. The film tells the story of a private detective named Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) hired by a mysterious client, Louis Cypher (Robert De Niro) to locate a missing singer.
It is Brooklyn 1955 and Angel is barely scraping by when he is offered a lifeline – a missing person’s case. Initially, he is suspicious but when the attorney offers him a substantial fee, his misgiving dissipates. After a short delay, he meets the client, the well-dressed and mysterious Cypher, who explains that he is trying to locate a man, Johnny Fortune, who still owes him a missing debt that he intends to collect.
Immediately Angel is suspicious but currently in desperate financial straits, he decides, against his better judgment, to take the case. He is immediately thrust into a dark, mysterious world filled with the occult and a culture unfamiliar to him. This sends him on a well-orchestrated but chaotic path which leads to a tremendous moment of self-discovery for the flawed but naive PI.
An adaptation of William Hjortsberg’s 1978 novel Falling Angel, Parker pairs down some of the elements of the source material and his screenplay and direction is a claustrophobic and atmospheric look at a man slowly – and willingly – descending into madness. Rourke’s Angel is a Brooklyn gumshoe with no concrete plan bouncing from case to case just getting by. His lack of a spiritual belief system impedes him while placing him at a huge disadvantage in the world – and case – he is investigating. Cypher recognizes his deficiencies and leads “this fallen Angel” down to his road of destruction.
The brilliant De Niro plays the enigmatic Cypher who is always well-dressed and impeccably manicured, yet consistently menacing. Seeming to always show up at inopportune times and places, Cypher is the physical embodiment of a “cautionary tale.” Despite the lack of screen time for his character, De Niro employs many of his signature facial mannerisms and actions to signal to Angel and the audience that something is amiss.
During his investigation, Angel crosses paths with two women, a fortune teller, Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling), and a voodoo priestess, Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet). In both cases, Angel uses a fake identity in search of information for his case. They both sus out that his motives are disingenuous and while each serves as beautiful set decoration for the story, they provide him with small clues that will neatly tie up in the film’s climatic third act.
Bonet’s involvement raised eyebrows professionally and personally for the young star. On leave from the wildly successful Cosby Show and A Different World, her steamy sex scene with Roarke had to be trimmed to keep the film from getting an “X” rating. While Cosby initially was supportive, her participation eventually got her fired from both shows.
Shot on location in Harlem and New Orleans, there is plenty of symbolism in the film, including shots of the whirring of fans and an elevator descending which are sprinkled periodically in the story. If you’ve never seen the film, we won’t spoil their significance but adapted from the source material, Parker and the film’s cinematographer, Michael Seresin (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) do an amazing job of ramping up the tension while not giving too much away that would spoil the finale.
At its core, Angel Heart is a brooding dark drama filled with a Rubik’s Cube of possibilities. A deeper dive explores a fascinating story of evil and deception where a clueless private dick stumbles upon his seeds of destruction. It remains a well-crafted neo-noir framed with impressive performances featuring one of Parker’s best screenplays. They say that the devil is in the details but for Angel, this case is a journey that exposes a life of uncomfortable truths that demonstrate that he can’t hide from himself.
.