Rated R for violence and strong language
OTHER TITLES: HEART OF TOWN (Original working USA title); MIRADA DE ANGEL (Spanish for WATCHED BY AN ANGEL); OCCHI D'ANGELO (Italian for EYES OF AN ANGEL); POLICAJTKA (Czech title for COPPER or POLICEWOMAN)
I only one prominent gripe about ANGEL EYES: The trailers/promos made it out to be a supernatural romantic thriller in the tradition of CITY OF ANGELS (that tear jerking, ultra romantic downer starring Nic Cage and Meg Ryan) or GHOST (that other tear jerking ultra romantic downer starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore). Well ANGEL EYES is an ultra romantic tear jerking downer, and just as heartfelt, but there are no ghosts or angels.
Instead we have a story about lonely people trying to make a connection in a lonely world. Sharon (Jennifer Lopez) is a street wise cop who takes no shit from big over grown potty mouths. She works hard and hardly sleeps at night. She deserves some happiness for sure, this fact becoming all the clearer as the story moves along. As fate would have it, she crosses paths with a strange guy who appears to be some drifter. He calls himself Catch and his only friend (aside from Sharon) is a dog he found foraging in an alley. He lives in a sparsely furnished apartment and has a strange habit of collecting little action figures. In spite of his creepiness at the beginning, Catch is quite a catch!!! He and Sharon embark on a fragile, quivering relationship that has its great and not so great moments.
Sharon wants to know who Catch is, where he's from and what brought him to who he is today, but Catch wants none of it and would rather just live as though his relationship with Sharon is all that matters. Her curiousity evolves understandable into suspicion, distrust and fear, so she begins the search for his identity.
ANGEL EYES is not a scary mystery where someone is trying to uncover the identity of some suspect evil being, so be assured Sharon is never in any DANGER with Catch...the only danger you realize is the danger to their relationship simply because Catch doesn't want to fully open himself to Sharon. And Sharon really needs him to open himself. Even though she has a family, Sharon is alone. From her childhood, her father (played to the hilt by Victor Argo) has been a wife beater. When she was young, her brother Larry (Jeremy Sisto) would jump in to protect their mother (Sonia Braga)and be beaten himself for his trouble. Sharon says to Catch, "But he never hurt ME," to which Catch wisely replies, "Yes he did." To add to the hurt already in place, Sharon's mother and brother are still resentful of her because she called the cops and reported the old man for abuse and had him arrested.
If this isn't a dysfunctional/codependent family, I don't know what is. Sharon discovers that Larry has developed to his dad's behaviors, and that wife Kathy (Monet Mazur) is just as in denial as Mom was. It's awful to see everyone turning and biting Sharon for offering her hand to help.
But as much as I wanted to reach through the screen and grab Old Dad and shake some sense into him, I realized what a non-sentimental movie this is. A sentimental movie that isn't like real life would have had Pop hugging Sharon and saying "I forgive you." The old man still thinks he's a victim of a mean daughter and Mom and Larry don't help matters by always hovering over him thinking Sharon's going to harm him and knock him out of his victim's fantasy world. One can only hope that he later called her and told her he loved her. Sniff!!! What a tear jerker.
This movie got such bad reviews. Yet it's a drama which is filled with such rich emotion and wonderful performances that I think some of the critics were just mad because they didn't get their CITY OF ANGELS II or whatever.
All the performances were top notch. Lopez who gets dissed at every turn for any reason anyone can think of, gave a very heartfelt sincere performance. Many other actresses are more polished and experienced, but she really put her all into this role and she made me feel a lot. Caviezel gave a highly emotional performance as well. Braga was very quiet and low key, yet excellent as an in denial wife/mother. Sisto, well what can I say, he hasn't disappointed me yet, and he added a lot to this film even though his role was small. A very interesting new character, the personification of sadness and self hate.
A regular story about the kind of regular dysfunction we all know in families. The general audience may think it's too boring a subject, but I think it was tackled very effectively in this movie and I give this movie an A+ for acting and for the story/production!!!
cast:
jennifer lopez as sharon pogue
jim caviezel as catch lambert
sonia braga as mrs. pogue
victor argo as mr. pogue
jeremy sisto as larry pogue
monet mazur as kathy pogue
shirley knight as elinora
directed by luis mandoki
from: warner bros.
Song: Angel Eyes by Tamara Walker, from the ANGEL EYES motion picture soundtrack
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