Angel Heart

An excellent psychological thriller on the border of horror and noir detective genres, with top-notch casting and professional, intelligent direction. Alongside The Omen, it's my favorite film with a satanic theme. The dark atmosphere is primarily created through inventive and excellent cinematography, characterized by views of rain-soaked night streets. The film features many elements of voodoo rituals, and unlike many other titles, it has lost practically none of its quality over time. It's arguably Mickey Rourke's best performance in his career. Angel Heart is about how the protagonist, by accepting a single job, descends into hell itself and reaches the depths of his mental and physical strength. Overall impression: 95%. (06/30/2007)

A Louisiana almost-noir, with a phenomenal De Niro. He is so precise in his role that you instantly know what’s going to happen. Even if you didn’t know what you were getting into in the first place, like me. After all, even the second part of the finale is pointlessly numbed by the insensitive use of flashbacks. The atmosphere of “the weird South" is of course executed flawlessly and Rourke… He is, as always, a story in himself. (05/04/2009)

A good thriller that gets a mysterious touch in the middle and by the end slides into horror. The story is not exactly packed with action, it moves forward rather slowly to reveal a surprising twist at the end, and it is really surprising. Formally, I don’t think there’s anything to reproach, but the film didn’t win my heart because voodoo is a topic that I don’t care much for, and that prevents a full score. (05/10/2008)

The jazz-filled atmosphere of Noir York as a perfect introduction and the disturbing voodoo flood as a strongly negative contrast. With mysterious thrillers, I simply expect more balance, and the crescendoing punctuation, as impressive and perfectly precise as it may be, is not enough for me. The perfectly stylized depression loses narrowly to the unnecessarily overdone Louisiana. 70% (12/21/2009)

Mickey Rourke is OK and easily carries the entire film on his shoulders, while the investigation is quite interesting with an atmosphere matching the best crime thrillers. And yet, I can’t rate it higher than what you see. The script, as it has been mentioned here several times, failed to reach me, to draw me into the plot or to shock me in any significant way. And the ending, full of supernatural and mysticism, was okay from the director's point of view and, like a few other scenes from this film, uncompromisingly and thrillingly delivered, but it rather spoiled the whole view of the film for me. That said, a very decent thriller and a must for the fans of the genre. (07/19/2011)