Angel Eyes

Do you remember the previews for Angel Eyes? Many of us don't. What few of us remember is a 30 second preview that ran only a handful of times that showed Jennifer Lopez as a female cop. That was it. Na drama, no emotion, the previews told the audience a story about a female police officer, nothing else. This is probably the biggest reason why nobody went to see this movie when it went to the cinema. Only when it hit the video stores, did people start wo watch. A beautiful film, Angel Eyes is a romance. Dealing with redemption, it deals with many degrees of love and hope. In fact, many people detail Jennifer Lopez as "Angel Eyes." This is not true. Take a deeper look and you will see that James Caviezel is the true Angel Eyes.

First, note to all brain dead film makers: If you're going to open your film with a location shot that includes Toronto's CN Tower, don't set the story in Chicago.

I'm sick of seeing obviously Canadian cities substituting for New York, Boston, Chicago, etc, etc. If you're going to film in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal then, you airheads, set the story in those cities. Or . . . don't choose filming locations and shots that scream you're not even in the U.S., never mind the city you purport to be the story's location.

That aside, I really enjoyed this film, mainly because Jennifer Lopez and Jim Caviezel are so likable together here. This is one of Lopez's better performances as well. She's as good as she was in "Out of Sight."

The film is a gentle love story about two people haunted by having unwittingly destroyed their families. They have a brief, chance encounter during one family's tragedy, and then as strangers are drawn together a year later; neither having a conscious recollection of the other. The relationship that develops after their second meeting gives both the strength to acknowledge and come to terms with their losses as well as find healing in each other.

Mandoki's 'Angel Eyes' is one movie that I had walked out on, twice. But for some reason, I stayed through the whole film during the third viewing, and I'm glad I did. Now, the problem with 'Angel Eyes' is the incoherence during the entire first hour. The story unfolds into something different each time while not staying within the frame of the main story. It's confusing. It's misleading. That works for some movies but not for 'Angel Eyes'. The reason why I had walked out earlier was because at some point the movie really drags but once the characters confront their own pain, the conflicts are presented and somewhat resolved. I appreciate Mandoki's attempt in telling the story of two lonely characters: One who is traumatized by a past event that changed his life and the other who has been neglected (almost disowned) by her family because she did the right thing. In spite of the mess in the beginning, he gets most of it right towards the end. The confrontation scene between Sharon and her family at the 'vow-renewal party' and the scene where Catch visits his wife and child's grave are very well executed. I liked the chemistry between Caviezel and Lopez. James Caviezel delivers a quietly subtle performance. It seems as though the part was made for him. Jennifer Lopez is a mixture. While she was terrible in some scenes, there were some shining moments of excellent acting, especially in the beginning and the latter half. She also carries off the copper role very well, just like she did in 'Out of Sight'. So, I guess it wasn't such a bad watch as I had thought earlier. Just needed some patience.

If you're a hard core movie fan, you learn to appreciate good "Bad Movies." There are movies that go so far off the tracks in terms of one or several essential features of film art -- casting, script, sets, pacing, editing, lighting, coherence -- that there is no way that you could, being honest, recommend them without qualifications to an unsuspecting viewer.

Movies that go off the tracks in these essentials and offer no redeeming features are just plain Bad Movies. You you make fun of them, and then you forget about them.

But some Bad Movies offer, amidst the badness, unique moments of grace and truth. You allow yourself to be sucked in, and you studiously ignore or forgive all the screw-ups that went into making them "Bad Movies." "Angel Eyes" is a *Good* Bad Movie.

Why Bad? Genre incoherence is the biggest problem here. "Angel Eyes" was marketed as a supernatural thriller that offered spooky, scary insights into fate, love, danger, and perhaps life after death. Ads, and the first portion of the movie, hinted at a weird alternate identity for one character. Was he a ghost? An angel? A devil? Would "Angel Eyes" be another "Sixth Sense" or "Wings of Desire"? That's all just smokescreen. I'm not revealing any spoilers by saying that no one in the movie is a ghost, an angel, or a devil; that conceit from the ads is jettisoned pretty quickly.

There is a subtext of fate, destiny, love and death, but that isn't worked really hard, either. That whole subtext could have been skipped and you'd still have pretty much the same movie.

The movie you get is a movie about traumatized people finding love and rebirth. And that is one great theme.

Another problem with the movie is its misunderstanding of how quickly people can recover from trauma. But, hey.

I say "but, hey," because this movie has a lot going for it, and it's worth seeing for what it has going for it.

Jim Caviezel is an underrated actor. He's not wooden; he's subtle. It's tragic that we've gotten to an era where audience's eyes can't appreciate a quiet actor in the Gary Cooper mode.

Caviezel is a worthy inheritor of the Gary Cooper mantle. He's stunningly handsome, has a big, gorgeous body -- he's a former basketball player, and it shows -- and he possesses Cooper's quiet masculine tenderness and humility.

All these qualities have allowed him to strike the perfect note of a very male spirituality in a number of films, from "Frequency" to "Thin Red Line" to "Pay It Forward" to "The Passion" to "Angel Eyes." In his early scenes, when the movie doesn't want you to know quite what he's about, he is perfect as a perhaps ghost-angel-devil-weirdo homeless bum-savior.

He's equally good, later, as an entirely corporeal lover.

He plays a wounded man, and Caviezel has the gifts to convey his character's inner pain. You believe that he cares as much as he does about what wounded him; you believe that his wounds could have done to him what the movie wants you to believe they did to him.

Jennifer Lopez is equally good. Face it -- Jennifer Lopez is a fine actress. Yes, she appears on tabloid covers. Yes, she made "Gigli." Yes, she poses in naughty clothes a lot. Yes, she is a Puerto Rican from the Bronx.

And you know what? She's a fine actress. Don't let her non-silver-spoon pedigree keep you from appreciating what she can do on screen.

Lopez is as good as a cop here as she was in the more celebrated film, "Out of Sight." She's winning, charismatic, natural, and lovely to look at. Even in a white t-shirt and navy blue cop uniform slacks, she is beautiful.

Like Caviezel, Lopez plays a wounded character ready to be reborn by love. She's equally as good as he, but she conveys her different wounds in a different way. One wounded person retreats; another lashes out in violence. It's interesting to see which party picks which method.

Sonia Braga is in this movie. Any movie with Sonia Braga in it can't be all bad.

Victor Argo, in a very small part as a very flawed man, is JUST PERFECT. 100% believable and heart-wrenching. I'll never forget his moments locked in silent misery, a misery he causes and a misery he feels.

Finally, there is a not-to-be-missed scene between an abused family member and the abuser. A character speaks into a video camera at a family reunion and ... the scene just took my breath away. At that point I wanted to cry and surrender my full respect to the movie, in spite of everything it had done wrong so far.

Don't let bad reviews prevent you from seeing this movie. Nothing's perfect. There's enough heart and beauty here for the discerning viewer to appreciate.

I stumbled on this film--because there was nothing obvious that made it look like a film worth your time. It's a film with a lot of misplaced evaluations. For instance, Jennifer Lopez was nominated for a "Razzie" award but the film shows a very fine effort from the lady. Again some comments on the photography infer the late cinematographer Piotr Sobocinsky has done a shoddy job because obvious Toronto landmarks appear in a film set in Chicago. This again is a fault of the Director and editor, not the cameraman who was one of the finest in his business (Kieslowski's "Dekalog" and "Three Colors--Red"). An intense viewing of the film affords the viewer to appreciate the opening shots, the alley shots, and the corridor shots that evoke feelings. It is quite different from the typical Hollywood camera-work.

There are flaws in the film. The film jumps to situations without a build up--Catch appears on a life saving situation, seemingly out of nowhere; two beers appear on Catch's table in the restaurant, without him ordering the second; no mention is made of why Catch chose this name; etc.

Yet despite those faults the film sails through as fine entertainment because of fine believable performances from Caviezel, Lopez, Sonia Braga, and Shirley Knight. The casting of these four was perfect (thank you Lopez for insisting on Caviezel!). The film is great entertainment because the film refrains from sex and promotes fine values--including family values, reconciliation, dealing with bereavement and doing good to make a better world. How many films are brave enough to deal with such subjects today without depicting sex and violence?

The film touches on subplots that could have been fleshed out--Catch's lonely neighbor who invites him share a pizza, Catch's friend who recognizes him at the restaurant but Director Mandoki clearly steers clear to present the two psychologically wounded persons and their healing by coming together through a sheer accident. The film may be very Christian in character but it presents a very secular, humane scenario that will uplift any viewer. Though unevenly woven, the film has several sequences that show Mandoki has fine capabilities. One only wishes he took greater care of details.

Flaws apart, the film is above average cinema that the publicity has shrouded by misplaced evaluations.