MC
Marco Castellini
•Brooklyn, 1950s: detective Harry Angel is hired by a mysterious and wealthy individual to track down Johnny Favorite, a musician who disappeared several years earlier. The detective uncovers a series of acquaintances of the missing man, who are mysteriously killed after each encounter. Surprise ending. Alan Parker directs a noir with more than one horror element, enhanced by the performances of an excellent Robert De Niro and, for once, a Mickey Rourke up to the task (this is, and will probably remain, the best performance of Hollywood's "pugilist"). A baroque thriller shot with an unusual attention to visual aspects and setting, but which is a bit too convoluted on the narrative level. The final solution is difficult to guess, but not entirely unpredictable. A good horror revision of the noir films of the 1940s. Curiosity: the film was initially labeled with the dreaded "X", which in the USA is equivalent to a ban for pornographic films. Then some sequences were removed and others "softened" and the film passed into theaters with a ban for minors under 17. For the role played by De Niro, Marlon Brando was initially contacted, who, however, refused the part.
