ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

TWENTY YEARS AGO, Luc Besson was one of the leading figures in a new wave of French filmmaking that promised to unite style and substance.

He was the talent behind ‘Subway’, ‘The Big Blue’ and ‘Nikita’. He hasn’t entirely fulfilled that early promise and the romantic fable ‘Angel-A’ is the first film he has directed in seven years. It is a patchily beguiling return to form that veers from the sublime to the ridiculous.

‘Angel-A’ is basically Besson’s own idiosyncratic version of the Christmas classic ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’. The setting is Paris rather than smalltown America, and the angel is a leggy catwalk-style blonde rather than an endearing old duffer, but the story does have striking similarities.

Jamel Debbouze plays lovable loser Andre. Heavily in debt and running out of options, he stands on a bridge preparing to throw himself into the Seine. He is suddenly joined by the mysterious Angela (Rie Rasmussen) who also seems intent on a watery grave.

When she jumps, he rescues her. His reward is a new companion who promises to do everything in her power to improve his life and make him a better man.

Filmed in gorgeous black and white, ‘Angel-A’ displays a good deal of charm as it unfolds among familiar landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre Coeur.

Debbouze is typically endearing, and Rasmussen makes a striking impression as one of the screen’s most unorthodox angels. The problems come in a vague sense of misogyny that haunts the film, and in a storyline that grows increasingly silly just at the moment it should be deadly serious.

Selected nationwide release
Director: Luc Besson
Stars: Jamel Debbouze, Rie Rasmussen, Gilbert Melki, Serge Riaboukine
Screenwriters: Luc Besson
Certificate: 15
Running time: 88 mins
Country: France
Year: 2005

© Allan Hunter, 2006