Mirada del angel

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.

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.

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 have to admit two things, one is that I'm not a big Jennifer Lopez fan. Secondly, she's very good in this film. The film opens at the scene of a car accident and a female police officer (Lopez) is telling the survivor who is all banged up that everything will be okay and to look at her. Then the film shifts to a year later and Officer Sharon Pogue is a Chicago cop who doesn't relate well to others except other cops and hates the whole dating process. While in a diner with her fellow officers she notices a man (James Caviezel) across the street looking at her and then suddenly a car drives by and starts shooting the place up. Sharon takes chase after the car crashes and chases a youth down into a secluded area when she is ambushed and the youth gets her gun and is ready to kill her when out of the blue the man who was staring comes out and saves her.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

Later in a bar she meets him again and talks to him. She asks him his name and all he says is "Catch". She's intrigued by him and he says he likes her but he says very little about himself. He wanders the streets a lot and also helps a handicapped woman named Elanora (Shirley Knight) with groceries. Meanwhile, Sharon has family trouble and her parents (Sonia Braga and Victor Argo) are going to renew their vows and she's not sure if she should go. When she was a young girl she called the police on her abusive father when he was beating her mother and after all these years he still has not forgiven her.

This film was directed by Luis Mandoki who also has shown in earlier efforts that he has a good flair for portraying relationships with believable emotional attachments. The problem is the area of the story surrounding Catch. We know right from the get-go who he is and what he's hiding. The film goes just a tad too long and of course there is an upbeat ending. I think it would have been totally appropriate to have a more open ending with some questions on the future of the characters. But the film is enhanced by a very good performance by Lopez. Not only is she believable as a tough cop but we can understand her emotional problems dealing with others. Its a performance that rings true and reminded me of why so many people are intrigued by her. Her character is the core of the film (not Catch) and she does a terrific job of balancing her emotions between the tough cop and the lonely and vulnerable woman. This isn't a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it is an underrated one. One of Lopez's shining moments.

I found this movie really engaging, even though it's imperfect directorially. Much of my admiration, though, may be because I fell madly in love with Jim Caviezel and his quiet, handsome, troubled but gently noble character (so bear that in mind!)...

Jennifer Lopez did very well - a sparky performance as always. Her police officer role appears to come very naturally to her, and the pairing is interesting with the initially mysterious Caviezel character.

Overall this movie may not win awards, but the lead characters are well drawn and their developing relationship is engaging, unpredictable and endearingly life-like. It's a nice romantic movie which draws you in.