Angel Heart (4½ Stars)

Sometimes I watch a film which is so unique that I can't figure it out until the end. I don't just mean the plot. In the case of "Angel Heart" even the film's genre is unclear. The film's atmosphere is so intense that I was transfixed from the first minutes.

The film is set in New York in 1955. Mickey Rourke plays the small time private detective Harry Angel. One day he's given a job by a mysterious client. Johnny Favorite, a pre-WW2 crooner, came back from the war as an invalid in 1943. Ever since then he's been in hospital. The client wants Harry to find out whether Johnny is still alive. That seems like a trivial job, but when Harry visits the hospital he finds out that Johnny was discharged from hospital on 31st December 1943, and ever since then the records have falsely listed him as a patient. A doctor admits that he's been bribed to falsify the records, but when Harry returns for more information the doctor has been shot.

Harry's investigations lead him to New Orleans, where he finds Johnny's ex-lover and one of his band members, but everyone he talks to ends up dead. The police blame Harry for the murders, which makes him think that someone is setting him up. Everyone says that Johnny has been dead since 1943, but Harry suspects that Johnny is killing people in order to stay hidden.

Whatever is happening, religion seems to be involved. The client lives in the building of a religious cult whose pastor claims to be God and lets himself be carried through the streets. Johnny's daughter performs voodoo rituals, soaking herself with chicken blood. When the client visits New Orleans to check on Harry's progress, he suggests that they meet in a Catholic Church.

This is a chilling thriller that kept me spellbound from beginning to end. It was a box office failure, probably because the public didn't know what to expect. They should have gone to see it anyway. They wouldn't have been disappointed. It was directed by Alan Parker, and I don't think he's ever made a bad film.

Success Rate:  - 1.0

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