Les traces de l'ange

This movie was a mess. It had the absolute worst editing I have ever seen. It was almost like at the end of a scene the writer wanted to go to commercial, and the filmmaker added a second of black screen to fulfill the writers dream.

Under the messy direction and editing, there was a glimmer of something good. A good idea, a compelling spark. But somewhere it went wrong.

The story is about a quasi-psychic priest who is trying to solve a string of murders. The first thing that is hard to bite into is Richard Grieco as a priest. Well the part doesn't call for him to be a good priest and he succeeds rather well. The second problem is Dennis Hopper as the crazy bad guy. He always plays the crazy bad guy. Very ho hum.

Oh, a thought occured to me that maybe all the jumpy, horrible editing and disconnected plot was trying to add a sense of the confusion the character (Grieco) was experiencing. And just to prove that it was contrived they rolled the credits backwords. Not a good sign for any movie.

First of all, what is good in the movie ? Some pretty actress ? the exotic background ? the fact that the actors don't laugh while acting (I would have if I had been in their situation) ? I don't know. The storyline is simple : a catholic priest who does abstract painting tries to find out who (another abstract painter) killed his little brother, a male prostitute (raped by another priest when he was young...). I'm afraid there is nothing here to learn or to let think a little about serial killers, art or religion. Dennis Hopper is not very good here. This is the worst episode of the worst season of "profiler" (the serie) with replacement actors and unbelievable coincidences (the uncle is the policeman who, the girl who lives at another victim's house could have a baby with the priest, etc., etc).

I recently saw this movie on hbo, and was pleasantly surprised. This was a movie that I was constantly glued to. Richard Grieco displays true emotion and determination as a priest/artist who goes to Puerto Rico after he's found out that his brother (who is a gay prostitute) has been brutally murdered. The acting is pretty good and the tension between Grieco and Hopper was superb. I give this movie a 6 because the supporting cast was a little shaky and there are some (not many) dull moments in the film. All in all, it's a great flick to watch and will keep you in suspense for quite awhile.

I recently saw this movie, and I enjoyed it and would encourage others to see it. In the movie, a priest/artist (Richard Grieco) goes to Puerto Rico after he's found out that his brother who's a gay prostitute was brutally murdered. The movie also stars Dennis Hopper who plays an athiest psycho killer, a role he's all to familiar with. The supporting cast is good not great, but they add to the film nicely. The music that underlays the film is haunting voices, breaths, and church music. This is a great mystery/thriller and it's definitely worth seeing.

This was an impulse pick up for me from the local video store. Don't make the same mistake I did. This movie is tedious, unconvincingly acted, and generally boring. The dialogue between the young priest and his uncle is particularly poorly written and delivered; I cringed at every scene they shared. Dennis Hopper makes a few sparse appearances and is his usual disjointed self; his role was clearly not a stretch for him. And although the movie is supposedly set in Puerto Rico, it feels a lot more like a Hollywood movie lot; all of the main characters are Caucasian and several tend to speak English with pseudo-Irish accents. Odd. Anyway, when you see this one on the shelf of your local video store, keep walking.