Alternate Best Actor 1987: Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart

Mickey Rourke did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Harry Angel in Angel Heart.

Mickey Rourke's career is perhaps one of the great cautionary tales of stardom. Starting a meteoric rise that fell into obscurity of the direct to DVD bin. This unfortunately perhaps overshadows his talent particularly in regards to his place among the young actors of the 1980's. Rourke, sometimes literally, taking over roles that were meant for the premiere 70's actors like Pacino, De Niro or Nicholson. Harry Angel, a private investigator in the 50's, is one such role, and perhaps was the perfect vessel for Rourke as well. Angel Heart is a neo noir in style of course, but naturally classic noir in its setup. This is where a strange man, Louis Cypher (Robert De Niro), hires Angel to track down a crooner named Johnny Favorite who has disappeared without paying some "debt" to Cypher. In that it does not appear that the role will be immediately an overtly emotional, as the P.I. is often used as the audience surrogate. In this way we open with Rourke's Angel merely taking upon the case by the strange Cypher and his rather vague intentions for the elusive target. Rourke makes up for any potential space using his considerable charisma to add to Harry's personal style. A particularly notable success on Rourke's part, as even as Harry looks a bit spent, if not even a little smelly, Rourke just maneuvers within a scene with such remarkable ease.

Rourke is a proper noir lead in these early scenes where we see Rourke just working the case. In particular he brings an essential levity of sorts to his performance. This isn't to say that this is at all a comedic performance, it's not. It's rather though just finding that sort of charm within the detective that seems is one step in front of the competition. Rourke excels with this, that again falls right within that charisma he delivers to the role. Rourke empowers the role of Angel in itself because of this showing a man seemingly well within his powers. Now this is in even his earliest scene in taking the case as Rourke exudes a natural confidence through a casual demeanor as a man who has caught more than one man performing a disappearing act in his time. This is backed up though by his moments of actually tracking Favorite, starting with a hospital that supposedly housed him. Rourke's way with the nurse is quite marvelous in just bringing just the right slyness in the slick smile of his bringing out the right quality of persuasiveness as he tricks her into giving too much information. We see a similar thing as he tracks down the drug addict doctor who helped to hide Favorite's escape. Despite breaking and entering, Angel controls the situation, and Rourke makes every second of this utterly convincing in his near grace of his delivery and physical disposition as he breaks the doctor down to give him the information he wants. This without a single threat of violence.

The confident detective, while quite compelling already, is but a warm up act for Rourke's performance. Not that this is wholly eliminated, not at all. In fact Rourke maintain just a bit of that classical noir lead presence helps the film from becoming too dour right away. He allows one to believe properly that this is just one strange mystery, of course things shift rather quickly when he finds the doctor has been brutally murdered. Rourke is exceptional in the moment of discovery of the crime portraying so effectively the immediate fear, properly losing any of that ease. This is fitting to a man who tries to quickly back out of the case in his next meeting with Cypher, only kept on by the promise of a greater financial reward. Rourke's performance though expresses the greater weight of the situation immediately, but goes further than that. In he slowly develops this subtle anxiety that becomes a constant. An internalized intensity that initially creates this sense of unease not only in Angel, but we are the witnesses of the mystery. There is simply something off about it all and Rourke embodies this brilliantly. What is most remarkable though perhaps is how effectively Rourke tempers this all the same, as with the material it would've been easy to become too much too quickly, yet Rourke takes the right approach making the sinister nature slowly get under your skin, as it does Harry's.

There is some less gut wrenching thrills to be had at first as Angel still is working the case, and Rourke is still so terrific in playing into the noir style so effortlessly. He's great though in the way that any scene that is even a bit of exposition, or even looking over a less extreme clue, Rourke makes all the more fascinating. His performance is never vacant in its expression, as he grants such nuanced detail to every scene. Rourke is never simply there in creating such a captivating presence that is both dynamic and reflective in a given scene. Rourke again has that way with words, and just manner that makes every moment stand out to at least a certain regard. That is in the way he always brings a bit more of an overt charm when interviewing any of the women, while channeling a more incisive intensity of inquiry when questioning potentially duplicitous men. Both qualities though Rourke finds that similar ease. He though doesn't stop there though as the plot thickens, and the idea of the supernatural slowly seems to become far more present. Rourke's work conveys this and carefully grounds it in a certain reality. This is he portrays the reaction to these revelations as a normal man within the situation would, avoiding an overtly stylistic approach that wouldn't have suited the role.

Now this connection to the plot is initially presented more as that fear and anxiety that Rourke gradually builds within the film, that creates an all the greater tension in the film. It slowly becomes more than that as Rourke exudes so effectively this as the body count piles up. This fear he conveys less as only an exact shock, but also with almost this certain underlying near guilt as he looks upon the murder scenes. Rourke physically loses that ease creating this decay of self as Angel struggles to comprehend what he is finding, and begins to see all the more horrifying visions besetting him. Rourke's work makes the film's atmosphere all the more palatable by so powerfully humanizing this shock, and paranoia of a man who seems to be descending into some personal hell. Rourke's eyes deliver this chilling uncertainty, that is all the more pointed as he loses all nearly all of that charisma. He no longer has that ease, or even the charisma, as he loses himself physically and mentally with Rourke portraying a man seemingly decaying. This is as Angel reaches closer to the conclusion of the mystery which spoilers finds that he is in fact Johnny Favorite, in at least some sense. As Harry Angel had his soul stolen from the man in a satanic ritual. The moment of this revelation is perhaps the greatest acting of Rourke's career in the sheer intensity and emotional devastation he grants the revelation. Although it deals with the supernatural it is made heart wrenching through Rourke's portrayal of a man who's entire reality is torn asunder. Rourke delivery is strained of man drained of all capacity of understanding, and at an edge of his mental capacity as he relives the murders of the witnesses of Favorite, that he in fact committed. Rourke's exasperated cries of "I know who I am" are absolutely haunting as a man at the end of two lives. Rourke creates the sense of man struggling to keep the truth of his mind, while accepting the devastation it inflicts upon his psyche. Rourke is equally powerful though in his near final moment of acceptance as he looks upon the final murder. Rourke conveys such raw despair as Angel/Favorite fully understands what he is and what he has done. This is an amazing performance by Mickey Rourke as he utilizes his star charisma so naturally in tandem with his emotional range, to craft an unforgettable portrait of a man discovering his own sins on his path towards Hell.