Does Rourke/DeNiro's "Angel Heart" actually make sense?

[Pacman4]

I just bought it on BD{I've seen it before}, but before I go along for the ride in HD, does this movie make sense, I couldn't make sense of it last time I watched it.

 

[sandorski]

Made sense to me.

 

[Pacman4]

Why is the lawyer killed?

 

[sandorski]

It's been >20 years since I watched it, so I didn't recall which character the "Lawyer" was and decided to Google about the movie to find out. Apparently the interpretation of what occurred during the movie is not the prominent one. My interpretation was that Johnny himself killed all as a way to cover his tracks. He did this Subconsciously, with his Soul, as it were.

The more common explanation is that Louis killed them all using Johnny, in order to frame Johnny for multiple Murders. Either way, all persons who either knew the truth(not the whole truth, but enough of the truth to piece together parts of the total truth) or had any contact with Louis/Johnny regarding the issue were systematically killed off in order to hide the truth of what was going on.

The Lawyer just happened to be one of the ones who didn't know the truth, but had contact with both Louis and Johnny regarding the issue. The Louis framing of Johnny makes more sense as to why the Lawyer was Murdered, he had direct contact with the Prince of the Underworld, so he had to go either way, but also because Johnny Murdering him was a great way to kick off the whole Framing gambit.

As for my Interpretation of the story, Johnny would have Murdered the Lawyer in panic and/or to continue to hide from Louis. For approx a decade the issue had been put behind him, then suddenly someone shows up unexpectedly and springs it directly on him. Even though he wasn't directly accused, just having the issue brought up would likely be traumatic.

 

[SearchMaster]

Lisa Bonet naked - what's so hard to understand?

 

[Pacman4]

My interpretation was that Johnny himself killed all as a way to cover his tracks. He did this Subconsciously, with his Soul, as it were.

First up, I like the movie regardless of whether or not it's partly or wholly illogical, so this is moreso out of curiosity and convenience{the net} that I'm raising these questions.

I haven't finished re-watching yet, but there's plenty of things I'm curious about, for example does the timing have anything to do with anything, ie, the incident occurred in 1943, yet it's not till 1955 that Deniro becomes aware he was duped.

I think another good idea is to start at the start and work off the facts the movie presents us with, so am I right about this....

Favourite sells his soul to the devil, becomes rich/famous but suffers a severe head/facial injury, he's then rendered temporarily zombified{or was never zombified as that was a lie on Favourites part}, either way he has cosmetic surgery so he looks different and still has some form of memory loss.

He hatches a plan to use his accident as a means to escape his contract with the devil, so pays the doctor to falsify his condition/whereabouts, but for some unexplained reason, the lawyer and Deniro happened to be in the neighbourhood and discover the dupe.

I wonder whether we're supposed to know how it is Deniro finds out, or is that to be overlooked for the sake of the plot...?, either way, it's clear from the first meeting between Favourite and Deniro, that Deniro knows who Fav is, but Fav doesn't know Deniro and may not even know himself...!!

Given the name of the movie, Angel "Heart" and the Deniro egg scene, we can assume that Fav did consume or somehow use someone's else's heart in a ritual attempting who knows what exactly, but presumably some form of spiritual cleansing/identity swap, hence all the other players in the second part of the movie.

The trouble I'm having so far is that if Harry Angel knows the truth, then he'd never come back to deniro and inform him of what happened to the doctor, as it'd be obvious that Angel killed the doc and why, so we have to assume that either Angel didn't do it, did do it but his memory is in the way, or Deniro did it, so if Deniro is doing it, is it because he doesn't know who the players are in the rituals/voodoo, and needs Angel to track them and identify them..?

That said, doesn't the ending show Angel doing it and then having an intense moment trying to reconcile who he really is...?

 

[Pacman4]

Nup, my biggest problem is the idea that Harry Angel didn't know he was killing all those people.....

 

[sandorski]

I don't think the Timing has any bearing on anything. It just happened then because that's when it happened. As for Harry knowing/not knowing, Harry was dead and only existed as a figment of Johnny's imagination. Johnny thought he was Harry, but subconsciously he knew the truth of the matter, I suspect Louis also knew the truth and was simply stringing him along until he realized it. Thus condemning himself(Johnny). Some of the clues that Johnny was aware subconsciously who he was were the various dream segments he had throughout the movie, little spooky snippets that began occurring after taking the job. Another was when he played the tune on the piano that another character recognized as one of Johnny's, but he wasn't sure where he had heard it before.

Like much good Fiction, this movie doesn't give every detail and allows the story to be open to the viewers imagination. The thing that most impressed me with this movie was just how Intellectually engaging it was. Like you, I couldn't stop thinking about it for sometime after viewing it. The spookiness, suspense, and plot twist was just excellently executed. On top of that, though I watched it when it was only recently released(approx a couple years after), I had no idea what the movie was about and with no expectations regarding it. By the end I knew I just watched a masterpiece and in retrospect it was certainly the best movie Mickey Rourke ever appeared in, IMO.

 

[Pacman4]

Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie, and whilst it's not the best looking BD I've ever seen, it looks quite beautiful at times, and they did a fairly convincing job with the setting, but the movie was "fuckin wit us"......not to worry, Deniro's performance seems better each time I view it.