Angel Heart (1987)

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Angel Heart (1987)

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Angel Heart is a 1987 American/British mystery-thriller film written and directed by Alan Parker, and starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, and Lisa Bonet. The film is adapted from the novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg, and is generally faithful to the novel with the exceptions being the introduction of a child of Epiphany Proudfoot conceived at a voodoo ceremony by "a devil", and that the novel never leaves New York City, whereas much of the action of the film occurs in New Orleans. A highly atmospheric film, Angel Heart combines elements of film noir, hard-boiled detective stories and horror.

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Angel Heart (1987)

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Plot: The movie opens in New York City, in January 1955. Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke), a downtrodden but competent private investigator is contacted by an attorney named Herman Winesap (Dann Florek) and instructed to meet a client named Louis Cyphre (Robert DeNiro) in a Harlem church. Cyphre, an elegant but mysterious man with long, manicured fingernails, tells Angel about a once-popular big band crooner named Johnny Favorite who was drafted during World War II and suffered severe neurological trauma in action. Favorite's incapacitation disrupted a contract with Cyphre regarding unknown collateral, and Cyphre believes that the hospital has falsified records, preventing the contract from being fulfilled. He hires Angel to discover the truth, and in the process, locate Favorite.
Angel travels to the hospital and discerns that the records were altered by a morphine-addicted veteran physician named Fowler (Michael Higgins) who admits he was paid $25,000 by a wealthy friend of Favorite's and a woman to do so; Fowler turns up dead shortly thereafter and Angel fears being suspected. He meets Cyphre to update him and end the job, but Cyphre pays him $5,000 to continue his search. Angel uses a journalist lover to find out most of Favorite's background, including his pre-war friendship with a Coney Island fortune teller. He learns that her name is Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling), now a prominent figure in voodoo and travels to New Orleans to find her.
Margaret refuses to divulge much information to Angel and tells him that Johnny is dead to her. To circumvent her obstruction, he tracks down Johnny's former secret love and discovers her daughter Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet), who was conceived during her relationship with Favorite. Epiphany is equally reluctant to speak, and so Angel locates Toots Sweet (Brownie McGhee), a blues guitarist and former Favorite bandmate. After witnessing Toots at a voodoo ceremony attended by Epiphany, Angel uses force to extract details of Favorite's last known whereabouts from Toots. In the morning, the New Orleans police inform Angel that Toots was murdered after he left; Angel later finds Margaret murdered in her home and her heart removed with a sacrificial knife. Epiphany stops by Angel's hotel and they have sex; during this time she reveals that Johnny Favorite was considered an extremely evil man who turned on everyone he knew. Angel suspects that Favorite is in hiding and killing off his former friends to prevent his discovery.

–from wikipedia

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Angel Heart (1987)

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Angel Heart (1987)

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Angel Heart (1987)

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Angel Heart (1987)

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Angel Heart (1987)

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