With Mickey Rourke driving for an Oscar with The Wrestler, his titillating ’80s filmography is now on the remake menu. Unlike The Pope of Greenwich Village and 9 1/2 Weeks, 1987’s Angel Heart was a middling effort best known for giving Bill Cosby a heart murmur. Producer Mike De Luca (Ghost Rider, Blade II) and co. have picked up the remake rights, along with the rights to Falling Angel, the NYC-set novel from which the original film was adapted.
An ambitious mix of noir, voodoo horror and taboo Lisa Bonet sex scenes, Alan Parker’s film starred Rourke as a P.I. unknowingly hired by Lucifer (Robert De Niro) to locate a man in New Orleans. The plot is weighed down by a slapdash Fight Club-like twist ending, but the film is so well shot and stylized, it’s almost worth a view and has its fans. There’s room for improvement here, and De Luca says he’s a fan of the source material, so remake exhaustion and disenchantment aside, it will come down to the director and talent involved (enlightening, I know).
