Angel Eyes (2001)
Jennifer Lopez, James Caviezel, Terrence Howard; d. Gerald Di Pego; C-

False advertising is a female dog. That's especially true for Angel Eyes. Advertisment of Angel Eyes promised suspense and the supernatural, but the actual story delivered is nothing more than a formulatic romance of two longers who join forces to battle the evil that is life. The mystical figure at the center of Angel Eyes, Catch (James Caviezel), is not a grown-up Cole Sear, but a heartbroken widow who wanders around the streets of Chicago, rejecting his past because it is too hard for him to bear. Jennifer Lopez plays the film's heroine Sharon Pogue, a hardened cop who has a bad love life and a broken family life. The two drifters cross paths when Catch heroically saves Sharon from a gun-toting hoodlum bent on avenging a friend's arrest. With Sharon's determined work and Catch's geeky, lethargic wussiness, the two overcome their emotional problems so that they can both drive away at the end of the movie as shiny, happy people.

Angel Eyes could have been better. The problem with the film is that it tried too hard to be something that it was not, that being a haunting romantic mystery. It failed mostly in that area because its central character, Catch, was not mysterious at all, and the film tries too hard to build up to some earth-shaking revelation about him. It's easy to guess who his character really is long before Sharon figures out, and the truth is less than satisfying. The truth does succeed in making the character more sympathetic to the audience, but only for a brief second. Caviezel's fine performance as the shy, boarderline geeky Catch reaches its high point near the end of the film during an emotional but poorly written monolouge where Catch comes to grip with his past and his future, but his character's apparent change from a sympathetic and charismatic loner to yet another young, attractive man with a young, attractive woman on his arm cheats the audience. The film also failed to be a haunting romantic mystery because of Jennifer Lopez's character. Lopez gives a wonderful performance, in fact she gives the film's best performance, but it is hard to believe that her hard shell of a character would fall in love with, or would even be concerned about, any other person. Sharon uses Catch like a love toy, while Catch whimpers and accepts the abuse like a pathetic little dog, and only when her cop buddy Robby (Terrence Howard) suggest that he's either a criminal or a stalker does she suddenly become interested in helping her current boy toy (just to make sure she isn't in any danger). The true mystery, then, is not who Catch is, but why a gentle soul like Catch would fall in love with and constantly be around a barking bull dog like Sharon.

On the other hand, many of the film's subplots were well-done. The story angle of Sharon's family life is particularly interesting. Not only does it offer a paralell to Catch's coming to grips with a tragic incident in the past, but it also brings depth to Sharon's role as a police officer. She is outcast from her family because, instead of letting the incident be, she calls the police on her father when she sees him beating her mother, and later comes to police another domestic abuse situation involving her brother and his wife. Thus she is accused of trying to police the family instead of letting things resolve by themselves and treated with hostility, especially from her father and brother. This suggests that the burden on Sharon's back is not loneliness, but her job as a police officer. Also Catch's background is interesting and tragic, yet, again, it is predictable. However, the side characters are not as well written as the subplots. All of them seem to have only one purpose and one emotion. Catch's neighbor merely screams and swears, while her son plays in the hallway and exchanges long and boyish gazes with Catch. Sharon's family members merely lambast her for being a cop, while her cop friends are merely taunted by Sharon's jokes. Luckily the supporting cast are able to pull of their characters with enough grace to make them seem like more than just mere wallpaper for the predictible romance of Catch and Sharon, but fail to hide their characters' single dementions.

A surprisng positive aspect of this film comes from its remarkable cinematography and camera work. Again, it tries too hard to create an atmosphere of something that the content can not live up to or provide, with its dark lighting and fequent hand-held shots, but the visual results are rather stunning. The film could have done without the "angel eyes" shots at the beginning and end.

This is one of the more forgettable films of 2001. Angel Eyes is not a bad film, however it fails to separate itself from the general heap of romantic fluff that seems to be released every year. Had the script gone through some changes, maybe Angel Eyes would have been something special. If you are interested in seeing this film, I would suggest waiting for it to come out on rental instead of seeing it in the theaters.

© Frances R. 2001