Angel

Compelling drama set amidst the topic of the Northern Ireland Troubles is an atmospheric character study (Stephen Rea excellent as the saxophonist/killer) amongst some great Irish settings.

It is a really splendid first film and although this is in the terrible times of the Northern Ireland troubles Neil Jordan can still use some great photography and some music. At the very start there is a wonderful portrait which captured the excellent Stephen Rea, the haunting saxophone and the young deaf mute wanders over, the name he calls Angel. There is great atmosphere in the Ballroom, especially Honor Heffernan probably Ireland's first and foremost jazz singer but then there will be violence and Rea will find a way to acquire a machine gun. It is a clever way that Jordan mixes the great dialogue, the wonderful music, the horrible killing and some detection.

Bizarre. A philosophical gangster film in the same vein as Stephen Frears' "The Hit"... and if you loved the aesthetic displayed in Jordan's own "Mona Lisa", then you're laughing!

Angel is very much an 80's Channel 4 drama about the troubles. Its certainly not a movie that is discussed much these days, I only came across it by chance.

The story concerns a saxophone player who witnesses the murder of his manager and a random deaf girl he meets on the night. The remainder of the story is him seeking revenge. It sounds interesting but it really isn't. The fact is this is a very boring movie because its about very boring people. This film definitely thinks its high brow art with lots of long silences and banal dialogue. Maybe this is the "understated" thing others have mentioned. To me it simply sucks all interest in the story you could have. The other obvious attempt to make this "arty" is the constant sax solos which seem to start every 2 mins. There is far too much music, bad music, in this which may have blown minds in 82, but its super tedious.

Any death scenes have zero impact, because you know nothing about these people or their motivations. Although one did make me laugh out loud. Its all very "dour Irish" and this seems to be what people are confusing for good art. The fact is, just because a movie has been made about the troubles, it doesn't mean its any good. You will likely end up at the finish line none the wiser just I like I did as to what the hell this was all about. You will be better off with Derry Girls at this rate.

Outstanding performances, Chris Menges expressive, painterly photography, an eloquently humane text, Neil Jordan's stylish, sporadically cruel 80s debut retains all of its dramatic intensity, this eternally lustrous 'Angel' is exceptionally refined cinema. The youthful, strikingly handsome, Stephen Rae, is magnetic, his desire for vengeance manifestly feral, and recognizably human. The gifted, passionate, profoundly insecure musician fatefully switching his cherished saxophone's mellifluous song for the sinister Stentorian discords of a machine gun appears strangely justified; and yet, his inexorable decent into a hell of his own making is well deserved.

Artfully directed, and undeniably wonderful, Neil Jordan's elegiac drama is emphatically a product of its turbulent times, with threats of sectarian reprisals omnipresent throughout and, yet, somehow it also feels miraculously timeless; a lively, emotionally complex world of rousing music, ceaselessly shifting light and shade, the profane carnality of murder, and the euphoria of deeply felt love. Whether bathed in hot neon or the cooler, earthier tones of Ireland's mythical countryside, Jordan's captivating aesthetic is remarkably assured, earnest, and profoundly moving,'Angel' remains unleavened cinematic poetry. Andy's retribution is bluntly expressed in an almost prosaic manner; swift, brutal, frequently haphazard, even shorn of all its fetishized glamour, the dark allure of his violence remains utterly compelling.